Decisions about children
should rest on evidence.
MIDA Learning Technologies is a consortium of doctoral-level educators and researchers who help districts, institutions and edtech partners turn ambition into measurable outcomes — through rigorous research, aligned curriculum, and strategy that holds up.
Fifteen years making career-connected learning provable.
Since 2011, MIDA has partnered with Defined, the Chicago-based educational software company, to advance project-based learning that raises academic achievement and builds 21st-century skills.
Our role has been the hard part: rigorous, research-based evaluation. Not testimonials — evidence. That work refined Defined's instructional solutions and produced the Portrait of a Graduate Handbook, now used by districts to define what a graduate should actually be able to do.
- Research-based program evaluation across multiple product cycles
- Authored the Portrait of a Graduate Handbook
- Career-connected, project-based learning frameworks
- Instructional resources grounded in measured outcomes
- Ongoing refinement informed by district-level data
Four practices. Eleven disciplines. One standard of proof.
Most consultancies sell a deliverable. We start with the question you actually need answered, then bring the right specialists from our network to answer it.
Research & Evaluation
Quantitative and qualitative designs at every level — including external evaluation of project impact, where independence is the point.
Curriculum & Assessment
Poor test scores are often a curriculum problem wearing a testing costume. We align what is taught and when — then link assessment back to instruction.
Strategy & Leadership
Mission, vision and values that connect to a long-range plan rather than a plaque in the lobby — built by people who have landed them at district and system level.
Technology & Professional Learning
Decades of technology-integration expertise, paired with professional development designed for the people who have to use it.
Rigor, applied in sequence.
Every engagement follows the same discipline, whether it runs six weeks or six years.
Understand
We start with your challenge and your data — not a template. What decision are you actually trying to make?
Design
The right methodology and the right specialists, matched to the question rather than to our availability.
Measure
Meticulous analysis against defined outcomes. We report what the data shows, including when it is inconvenient.
Sustain
Findings become practice through professional learning and implementation support, so the work outlives the engagement.
Practitioners first. Researchers by discipline.
Fourteen doctoral-level specialists who have led districts, deaned colleges, written software and taught seventh-grade math — often the same people, in that order.
What decision are you trying to make?
Whether you are an institution rethinking curriculum, an organization with a vision for educational innovation, or a partner who needs independent evidence of impact — that question is the right place to begin.