As a structure to support design-based research activities, I utilize research-practice partnerships (RPPs). Research-practice partnerships are long-term, mutualistic collaborations between practioners (e.g. teachers, administrators) and researchers that are intentionally organized to investigate problems of practice and solutions for improving educational outcomes. Design-based research proves most effective when used within a RPP focused on solving a complex, problem of practice. Within a research-practice partnership, researchers and practitioners negotiate and commit to a mutually beneficial focus so the needs of all stakeholders are met. This not only meets the needs of researchers but produces research findings that further inform solutions for improving educational problems. I use RPPs with design-based research when working with educators so we collaborate and design solutions that will be beneficial and then work together to collect and analyze data that iteratively informs the next round of design activities. For example, in Johnson et al. (2016) my colleagues and I report on the lessons learned in a research-practice partnership focused on professional development activities collaboratively designed to analyze mathematical tasks. We report on the design activities, partner meetings, negotiations, and tensions informing us on that collaborative design of professional learning activities needs to be adaptive to meet the goals of all stakeholders. As RPPs are a fairly new approach to structuring and supporting research, in my manuscript Leary and Severance (2018), we introduce RPPs to the instructional design field (as the majority of RPP literature is in the Learning Sciences) indicating the benefits of this type of work and how RPPs can be used to tackle problems of practice. I have found research-practice partnership work to be a very rewarding and effective way to work with educators.