72 minute read

CAPABILITY STATEMENT

from The Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University

from The Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University, page 50

Landscape Report on Early Grad...

The Learning Systems Institute at the Florida State University was stablished in 1969, as a multidisciplinary research and development organization dedicated to improving learning and human performance, with expertise in performance improvement, learning technologies, international development, teacher education and professional development. LSI is a recognized leader in multidimensional education projects and capacity building for educational system reform and strengthening, with experience implementing educational programs in Florida, the United States and in more than 35 countries worldwide.

INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY............................................................................................................................. 3

LINKS TO FSU-LSI VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE ....................................................................................................... 6

LSI 50th Anniversary Video........................................................................................................................ 6 CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (CISERD)......... 6 RECENT INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS ...........................................................................................................12

SELECTED RECENT US-BASED PROJECTS.....................................................................................................15

DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS ............................................................................17

Transforming Teacher Education in Zambia ...........................................................................................17 USAID-Florida State University partnership set to boost teacher training systems in Zambia ..............18 Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program (UEEP) ...........................................................................20 USAID Collaboration with Nigeria’s Bayero University in Kano Strengthens Early Grade Reading in Nigeria.....................................................................................................................................................22 The Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year! ................................................................................................................................................................25

Florida State researchers improve teacher training and childhood literacy in Nigeria..........................26 The Nigeria Center for Reading and Development at BUK held a national reading conference in Kano, Nigeria.....................................................................................................................................................29 How do teachers learn to teach reading and writing in Honduras? That’s what a team of researchers at FSU are trying to find out........................................................................................................................30 From Readers to Leaders: The Learning Systems Institute at FSU launches a new project in Honduras ................................................................................................................................................................31

New publication by RTI Press explores the many ways in which teachers around the world are supported throughout their professional careers to improve teaching and learning. ............................................32 Nigeria Northern Education Initiative Plus (NEI+) ..................................................................................34 FSU’s Learning Systems Institute aids Education Crisis Response Project in Northern Nigeria .............35 FCR-STEM gives Duval County teachers 3-D printer know-how to use in math, science classes...........37 Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ –TA) ...............................38 USAID publishes online elements of LSI’s work in Ethiopia....................................................................39 LSI continues work on teacher education in Northern Nigeria ..............................................................41 After six weeks of study, Egyptian educators share insights and friendships with Florida State University, Santa Fe College and the U.S. Department of State...............................................................................43 Egyptian educators come to FSU under the U.S. State Department program to study U.S. Community College system ........................................................................................................................................45 Educators from Egypt come to FSU to study how Florida provides access to higher education ...........47 US-Indonesia Teacher Training Partnership (TTIP) Project.....................................................................48 Landscape Report on Early Grade Reading.............................................................................................49

UNICEF-Pacific Technical Support in Designing an Early Grade Literacy Program for Tuvalu................50 Decentralized Basic Education, Component 2 USAID-Indonesia............................................................51 PAST PERFORMANCE INFORMATION (PPI)................................................................................................. 52

The Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University

INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY

The Florida State University is a premiere research university located at the state capital city of Tallahassee, Florida. U.S. News & World Report ranks FSU No. 18 among public universities in the United States (2019). Founded in 1851, FSU is a comprehensive public institution and home of several colleges and research units, including the Learning Systems Institute (LSI).

Established in 1969, the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) is a multidisciplinary research and development organization dedicated to improving learning and human performance, with expertise in performance improvement, learning technologies, international development, and communities of instruction, leadership, and other areas. LSI is a recognized leader in multi-dimensional education projects and capacity building for educational system reform and strengthening, with experience implementing education programs in Florida, the United States and in more than 35 countries worldwide.

LSI’s project-based teams feature top researchers from FSU’s other units, and leading institutions across the globe. Serving a variety of private, state, federal, and international clients for five decades, LSI has a strong record of accomplishment managing multi-million-dollar research and service activities. LSI has earned an international reputation for efficient and effective management and technical work that meets the needs of clients.

Within LSI, the Center for International Studies in Educational Research and Development (CISERD) has been providing technical assistance to developing countries, many funded directly or indirectly by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. State Department, UNICEF, and other international donors. Most of these international projects aim to improve primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as to support educational reforms that call for pre and in-service teacher education, curriculum and materials development for all these levels, including technical and vocational training for workforce development.

LSI’s portfolio of past and current international development programs focuses on supporting systems for sustainable and continuing professional development for educators and policymakers. Our teams focus on delivering quality education services that improve learning outcomes in disadvantaged areas and under-served populations; actively working with ministries of education at national, regional, and community levels; and supporting local and international partners in implementing educational plans.

LSI’s international project experience includes management of the USAID Improving the Efficiency of Educational Systems (IEES)1 project, a 10-year, $58 million effort involving a consortium of universities that resulted in the development of multiple research and assessment tools used by government ministries and international organizations in various countries.

1 FSU-LSI managed the USAID-funded project 'Improving the Efficiency of Educational Systems' (1984-1994) in eight countries from around the world: Liberia, Botswana, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Haiti, Yemen, Indonesia, and Nepal.

LSI’s recent experiences 2 working with USAID and its implementing partners include projects in the Philippines (USAID/RTI-STRIDE); Indonesia (USAID/EDC-DBE2 and USAID/RTI-PRIORITAS); Nigeria (USAID/CAII-NEI+ and University Partnership Program); Ethiopia (USAID/RTI-READ TA); and Honduras (USAID/EDC – Reading Activity). We have also brought over 200 higher education administrators from multiple countries to FSU campuses, under the auspices of the “Community College Administrator Program” sponsored by U.S. Department of State (USDOS/ECA). In addition, LSI manages projects funded by state and federal agencies; and international donors, such as UNICEF in Tuvalu and Nigeria (i.e., Reading and Numeracy Activity in Borno and Yobe States).

LSI also houses The Florida Center for Research in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (FCR–STEM), a multidisciplinary research center created by the Florida Legislature and competitively awarded to Florida State University in 2007. The FCR-STEM’s mission is to help the State of Florida improve STEM teaching and learning in grades K- 12 and prepare students for higher education and STEM careers in the 21st century. Through impacts on teacher knowledge and classroom practice, FCR-STEM strives to:

1. Improve student achievement in STEM fields. 2. Narrow student achievement gaps in STEM fields. 3. Increase student pursuit of STEM fields.

These broad goals are addressed primarily through high-quality research, teacher professional development, and the development of innovative resources and tools to support instruction aligned with curriculum standards. Among FCR-STEM's major accomplishments are (2) research studies investigating teaching and learning in varied contexts and the impacts of professional development on teacher and student outcomes, (2) the design and delivery of intensive professional development for over 2,500 K-12 math and science teachers in Florida, and (3) the development of CPALMS (www.cpalms.org), a webbased system of over 10,000 free lessons and other instructional resources vetted by content and teacher experts - plus online tools to support teachers' planning and instruction. <FCR-STEM@lsi.fsu.edu>

LSI works to improve learning and instruction worldwide through international partnerships with government, universities, and local non-governmental organizations. In the most recent fiscal year, LSI managed projects worth more than $56 million, with another $31 million in grants and contracts pending. LSI currently employs more than 400 faculty personnel, researchers, and support staff serving a variety of private, state, federal, and international clients.

• LSI Strength - International and Development Education

The Learning Systems Institute at FSU has a long and respected history of international work in education. Our international projects focus on carrying out rigorous research to address the most pressing educational challenges that face educators around the world, especially those in resource-lean environments. We design, implement, and evaluate educational improvement interventions worldwide, in addition to providing specialized technical assistance in areas such as teacher professional development, curriculum design and monitoring and evaluation. Our development perspective focuses on equity, local capacity as well as system strengthening and stakeholder engagement.

2 See Past Performance Reports.

• LSI Strength — Learning and Instruction

LSI faculty members conduct rigorous scientific research to support decisions on educational reforms, curricular improvements, classroom instruction and integration of technology into learning systems. Our experts have numerous publications and projects focusing on teaching and learning. Among these, are studies on students’ learning strategies, learners’ success on complex cognitive tasks, optimizing the cognitive load of instruction, and research on the development of high quality educators and instructors in a wide range of settings across the world.

• LSI Strength — Performance Improvement

LSI is dedicated to conducting research and developing instructional and non-instructional interventions aimed at improving performance. Our efforts focus on how individuals and organizations perform complex tasks and how we can help them achieve their performance goals. Our analytical approach is systemic, and our solutions are interdisciplinary, incorporating cognitive and educational psychology as well as instructional and information technology. As such, LSI collaborates with institutions and experts from our community and across the globe. Many types of organizations have benefited from our research and development in a variety of domains, including education, the military, sports, health care, law enforcement, and homeland security.

• LSI Research Team

A team of researchers housed at LSI constitutes the institute’s core faculty. Most of LSI’s lead research faculty also holds a teaching appointment at Florida State University. In addition, faculty members from across the university are frequent contributors to the institute. In fact, every year more than 150 FSU professors and researchers collaborate on LSI projects. LSI’s faculty members have expertise in research design and methodology across a range of approaches and techniques. Specific strengths brought to bear on recent work include reading research, experimental and quasi-experimental research of educational programs and interventions; collection, management, and analyses of large datasets; experimental studies utilizing nested designs and hierarchical data modeling; and valueadded methodologies. At LSI, faculty and researchers collaborate to answer questions that require expertise in designs and methods drawing from traditions in psychology, economics, and education.

LINKS TO FSU-LSI VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE

LSI 50th Anniversary Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzNgZ_aiLKQ&feature=youtu.be

Discover how the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) has worked to improve learning and performance for 50 years (1969-2019) at Florida State University, in Florida, nationally, and internationally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe77pqjlPu8&feature=youtu.be

Created by Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University Music from https://filmmusic.io | "Image film 041," "Total Happy Up and Sunny," and "Image film 018" by Sascha Ende (https://www.sascha-ende.de) | License: CC BY http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

**Florida State University Campus in Tallahassee. Florida**

LSI Communications Contact: Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, Ed.D. Senior Research Associate/CISERD Associate Director Learning Systems Institute, Florida State University University Center C, 4600, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2540 E-mail: framos@lsi.fsu.edu https://lsi.fsu.edu/ciserd/

CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (CISERD)

The Center for International Studies in Educational Research and Development (CISERD) at the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) has overseen dozens of projects across the globe in multiple sectors. Areas of activity include basic education (primary and secondary), higher education, vocational training, health, urban development, education technology, teacher training, reading/literacy instruction, rural communication, girl’s education, instructional design, accommodations and modifications for students with special needs; learning disabilities libraries; STEM (science, technology, engineering, math); expert performance improvement; learning technologies; sector assessments and evaluations.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Northern Nigeria Education Initiative Plus (NEI+)

Funding Agency: USAID-Nigeria/ Creative Associates International, Inc. Contract Number: FSU-2015-001 Principal Investigator: Adrienne Barnes Award Amount: $1,075,414.00 Period of Performance: 11/5/2015 – 7/5/2020

Nigerian Center for Reading Research at Bayero University Kano, Nigeria

Funding Agency: USAID-Nigeria Contract Number: AID-620-G-17-00001 Principal Investigator: Stephanie Zuilkowski Award Amount: $993,656.31 Period of Performance: 6/15/2017 – 6/14/2020

Addressing Post Conflict Activities to Counter Violent Extremism in Borno State, Nigeria

Funding Agency: USAID-Nigeria/University of Maiduguri Contract Number: 044598 Principal Investigator: Ana H. Marty Award Amount: $169,584.00 Period of Performance: 2020

National Reading Program Implementation and Expansion

Funding Agency: USAID-Malawi Contract Number: 72061220P00001 Principal Investigator: Adrienne Barnes Award Amount: $334,180.00 Period of Performance: 2019-2020

UNICEF: Reading and Numeracy Activity (RANA) in Borno and Yobe States, Nigeria

Funding Agency: UNICEF Contract Number: RF03015 Principal Investigator: Ana Marty Award Amount: $503,167.00 Period of Performance: 11/10/2018 – 5/31/2019

Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ TA) Project (2012-2018)

Funding Agency: USAID-Ethiopia, subcontracted to RTI International Florida State University (subcontractor to RTI) Contract Number: 2-330-0213559 Principal Investigator: Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, w/Jeffrey Milligan Award Amount: USD $2.4 Million Period of Performance: October 2012- January 2018

Educational Attainment for Young Mothers in Zambia: Disconnects Between Policy and Practice

Funding Agency: Spencer Foundation Contract Number: N/A Principal Investigator: Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski Award Amount: $50,000 Period of Performance: 05/01/2017 – 12/31/2018

OTHER PAST PROJECTS IN AFRICA:

• East Africa: Introducing Critical Thinking and Transformative Learning into Church

LeadershipDevelopmentPrograms • Ghana and Senegal: Patterns of Public-Private Sector Collaboration in the Promotion of

Nonformal Education and Training • Guinea Financial Management System Development • Review of Education Budgets for Improvement of Primary Education in Malawi • Skill Learning for Economic Success: Strategies of West African Women for Literacy and

NumeracyAcquisition • West Africa: Informal Education Strategies for Skill Acquisition & Practical Applications of

Koranic Learning

ASIA & PACIFIC

Science, Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (STIP) in Higher Education Annual Program Statement - Uzbekistan Excellence in Education Reform (UEEP).

Funding Agency: USAID Central Asia/ RTI International (FSU is a subcontractor to RTI) Contract Number: 2-330-0217315 Principal Investigator: Rabieh Razzouk w/ Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi Period of Performance: 12/9/2019-12/8/2023 Contract Dollar Value: USD $3,550,000.00

Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines (ABC+) (2019-2022)

USAID-Philippines/ RTI International. Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan w/ Flavia Ramos Mattoussi Award Amount: USD $953,847 Contract: pending

Science, Technology, Research, and Innovation for Development (STRIDE) Program

Funding Agency: USAID-Philippines/ RTI International Contract Number: 2- 330-0213997 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan Award Amount: $887,539.00 Period of Performance: 2013-2019

US-Indonesia Teacher Training Institute Partnership (2014-2017)

Helen Boyle, P.I. With Stephanie Zuilkowski and Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi Funding amount: $ 500,000 Funding Agency: RTI International (USAID)

UNICEF-Pacific: Early Grades Literacy Program for Tuvalu

Principal Investigator: Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi Contract # 43142634 Funding amount: $34,559 Period of Performance: 2013-2014

Prioritizing Reform, Innovation, And Opportunities for Reaching Indonesia’s Teachers, Administrators, and Students (PRIORITAS)

PI: Jeffrey Milligan w/ Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi Contract # - 3-330-0213381 Funding amount: $890,000 (2012-2017) Funding Agency: USAID-Indonesia/RTI International

Decentralized Basic Education 2- USAID-Indonesia

Florida State University (Sub-grantee to Education Development Center) Contract/Award Number: USAID Contract No. 14-5132 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan (2006-2012) w/ Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi (2009-2012) Contract/Award Amount: US$ $1,841,847 (Sub-grant Budget) Period of Performance: 2006-2012

OTHER PAST PROJECTS IN ASIA:

• EducationalChangethroughSystemsPlanningfortheRepublicofKorea • Indonesia HigherEducation DevelopmentSupport Project • Pakistan Primary Education Development Program • TechnicalAssistanceinEducationalDevelopmentfortheRepublicofKorea • Technical Assistance for the Thailand Hill Area Education Project • USAID/Indonesia DecentralizedBasicEducationProgram

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Honduras Reading Activity (De Lectores Líderes/Readers to Leaders)

Funding Agency: USAID-Honduras/Educational Development Center (EDC) Contract Number: 2018-0036 Principal Investigator: Adrienne Barnes Award Amount: $946,000.00 Period of Performance: 2018 – 2019

OTHER PAST PROJECTS IN LAC:

• Development of Educational Technology in Latin America • DevelopmentofInstructionalSystemsDesignSpecialistsforLatinAmericanCountries • EducationalTechnologyWorkshop for Panama • EvaluationofRadio SantaMaria’sAdultEducationProgramintheDominicanRepublic • Evaluationof the Peruvian Rural CommunicationServicesProject • Systems Training for Brazilian Space Agency Personnel • Training Assistance PrograminEducationalTechnologywiththeUniversidadPedagógica NacionalinColombia • TrainingProgram in Civic Education for Groupof Normal SchoolTeachersfrom Haiti

THE MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA

Higher Education Capacity Development (HECD) Program in Lebanon

LSI is working with EDC on the HECD project to strengthen the capacity of Post-Secondary Education Institutions, and empower targeted universities to improve workforce skill development in specific areas. Funding Agency: USAID/Lebanon- Education Development Center NOFO NUMBER: 72026819RFA00001 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan w/ Rabieh Razzouk Award Amount: USD $1,212.000 Period of Performance: 2019-2024 Contract: pending

Arab Barometer Report on Nonformal Education in the MENA Region

The LSI team conducted a desk review of country reports and produced an overview chapter that synthesizes the findings from the Arab Barometer survey results from nine countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Principal Investigators: Helen Boyle with Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi Sub-awardee: The Learning Systems Institute at the Florida State University Funding Agency: University of Michigan, in combination with Northwestern University and the Salam Institute for Peace and Justice, with funds from USAID. Funding Amount: USD $10,000 Period of Performance: February-August, 2018

OTHER PAST PROJECTS IN MENA:

• Egypt Local Development II Urban Project • Morocco: Analysis of Impact of Adverse Education Indicators upon Mission Program Analysis • Technical Assistance in Educational Development to University of Jordan • TrainingPrograminDesignandProductionofInstructionalMaterialsforIran

GLOBAL REACH

Community College Administrator Program (CCAP) U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs

Period of Performance: 2014 – 2021 Contract/Award: Multiple Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan The Community College Administrators Program is an ongoing project (2014-2021) implemented by FSULSI for the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. CCAP educates policymakers and administrators of post-secondary vocational-technical institutions in multiple countries on the operations of the U.S. community college model in areas of governance, leadership, workforce development, skills training, curriculum development, instruction, student affairs, program evaluation, career services, instructional technology and accommodation of diversity in order to improve vocational/skills training in participating countries and strengthen these institutions' capacity to contribute to the economic development needs of participating countries. CCAP accomplishes these goals through an intensive six-week program of study of the U.S. community college model conducted partly in the participating countries and in Florida. To date, FSU-LSI has implemented CCAP programs for cohorts from Indonesia, India, Ukraine, South America (Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru), Egypt, Pakistan and South Africa.

Advancing Basic Education: All Children Reading (ABE: ACR)

This is a multiple-award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. Period of Performance: 5 Years (8/8/2014-8/7/2019) Funding Agency: USAID Prime Contractor: RTI International Contract No. SOL-OAA-12-000068 Status: Awarded, August 2014 (multiple task orders pending)

Advancing Basic Education: Access for All (ABE: ACCESS)

This is a multiple-award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. Period of Performance: 5 Years (8/8/2014-8/7/2019) Funding Agency: USAID Prime Contractor: International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI) Status: Awarded, August 2014 (multiple task orders pending)

OTHER PAST PROJECTS WORLDWIDE:

• Advancing Basic Education and Literacy Project • An Analysis of the Criteria for Research Utilization in Developing Countries • Improvingthe EfficiencyofEducationalSystemsinSelectedDevelopingCountries

LSI has managed projects in the following 36 countries:

1. Botswana 2. Brazil 3. Chile 4. Colombia 5. Dominican Republic 6. Ecuador 7. Egypt 8. Ethiopia 9. Ghana 10. Guinea 11. Haiti 12. India 13. Indonesia 14. Iran 15. Jordan 16. Liberia 17. Malawi 18. Morocco 19. Mozambique 20. Namibia 21. Nepal 22. Nigeria 23. Pakistan 24. Panama 25. Peru 26. Philippines 27. Senegal 28. South Africa 29. South Korea 30. Thailand 31. Tuvalu 32. United States of America 33. Uzbekistan 34. Ukraine 35. Yemen 36. Zambia 37. Zimbabwe

RECENT INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

https://lsi.fsu.edu/projects/current-projects/

Transforming Teacher Education in Zambia

Funding Agency: USAID Prime Contractor: The Learning Systems Institute (LSI) at Florida State University Contract Number: Cooperative Agreement No. 72061120CA00006 Principal Investigator: Stephanie Zuilkowski Award Amount: $15,000,000 Period of Performance: 9/30/2020-9/29/2025

Science, Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (STIP) in Higher Education Annual Program Statement - Uzbekistan Excellence for Education Program (UEEP)

Funding Agency: USAID Central Asia/ RTI International (FSU is a subcontractor to RTI) Principal Investigator: Rabieh Razzouk w/ Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi Period of Performance: 2019-2021 Award Amount: USD $3.4 Million Contract:

Higher Education Capacity Development (HECD) Program in Lebanon

Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan w/ Rabieh Razzouk Award Amount: USD $1,212.000 Period of Performance: 2019-2024 Contract: pending

Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines (ABC+) (2019-2022)

USAID-Philippines/ RTI International. Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan w/ Flavia Ramos Mattoussi Award Amount: USD $953,847 Contract: pending

Addressing Post Conflict Activities to Counter Violent Extremism in Borno State, Nigeria

Funding Agency: USAID-Nigeria/University of Maiduguri Contract Number: 044598 Principal Investigator: Ana H. Marty Award Amount: $169,584.00 Period of Performance: 2020

National Reading Program Implementation and Expansion

Funding Agency: USAID-Malawi Contract Number: 72061220P00001 Principal Investigator: Adrienne Barnes Award Amount: $334,180.00 Period of Performance: 2019-2020

Northern Nigeria Education Initiative Plus (NEI+)

Nigerian Center for Reading Research at Bayero University Kano, Nigeria

Funding Agency: USAID-Nigeria Contract Number: AID-620-G-17-00001 Principal Investigator: Stephanie Zuilkowski Award Amount: $993,656.31 Period of Performance: 6/15/2017 – 6/14/2020

UNICEF: Reading and Numeracy Activity (RANA) in Borno and Yobe States, Nigeria

Funding Agency: UNICEF Contract Number: RF03015 Principal Investigator: Ana Marty Award Amount: $503,167.00 Period of Performance: 11/10/2018 – 5/31/2019

Science, Technology, Research, and Innovation for Development (STRIDE) Program

Funding Agency: USAID-Philippines/ RTI International Contract Number: 2- 330-0213997 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan

Award Amount: $887,539.00 Period of Performance: 2013-2019

Honduras Reading Activity (De Lectores a Líderes/Readers to Leaders)

Funding Agency: USAID-Honduras/Educational Development Center (EDC) Contract Number: 2018-0036 Principal Investigator: Adrienne Barnes Award Amount: $946,000.00 Period of Performance: 2018 – 2019

Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ –TA)

Funding Agency: USAID-Ethiopia/RTI International Contract Number: 2-330-0213559 Principal Investigator: Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi with Jeffrey Milligan Award Amount: $2.4 million Period of Performance: 2012-2018

US-Indonesia Teacher Training Partnership (TTIP) Project

Funding: USAID/RTI International Principal Investigator: Helen Boyle with Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi and Stephanie Zuilkowski Award Amount: $500,000 Period of Performance: 2014-2017

Technical Support in Designing an Early Grade Literacy Program for Tuvalu

Funding Agency: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF-Pacific) Principal Investigator: Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi Period of Performance: 2013-2014

Decentralized Basic Education, Component 2, Indonesia

Funding Agency: USAID-Indonesia/Educational Development Center Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Ayala Milligan w/ Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi Award Amount: $1.77 million (Phase 1: 2006-2009) and $314,873 (Phase 2: 2010-2011) Period of Performance: 2006-2011

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADMINISTRATOR PROGRAM (CCAP)

https://lsi.fsu.edu/ccap/

The Community College Administrators Program is an ongoing project (2014-2021) implemented by FSULSI for the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. CCAP educates policy makers and administrators of post-secondary vocational-technical institutions in multiple countries on the operations of the U.S. community college model in areas of governance, leadership, workforce development, skills training, curriculum development, instruction, student affairs, program evaluation, career services, instructional technology and accommodation of diversity in order to improve vocational/skills training in participating countries and strengthen these institutions' capacity to contribute to the economic development needs of participating countries. CCAP accomplishes these goals through an intensive six-week program of study of the U.S. community college model conducted partly in the participating countries and in Florida. To date, FSU-LSI has implemented CCAP programs for cohorts from Indonesia, India, Ukraine, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Egypt, Pakistan and South Africa.

FY17 Community College Administrator Program (Pakistan x 4)

Funding Agency: U. S. Department of State Contract Number: S-ECAGD-17-CA1085 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan Award Amount: $1,636,000.00 Period of Performance: 9/1/2017 – 12/30/2021

FY17 Community College Administrator Program (Ukraine + Other)

Funding Agency: U. S. Department of State Agency Contract Number: S-ECAGD-17-CA1085 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan Award Amount: $818,000.00 Period of Performance: 9/1/2017 – 12/30/2021

FY18 Community College Administrator Program (Pakistan)

Funding Agency: U. S. Department of State Contract Number: S-ECAGD-18-CA0030 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan Award Amount: $410,000.00 Period of Performance: 9/19/2018 – 8/30/2023

FY18 Community College Administrator Program (Western Hemisphere)

Funding Agency: U. S. Department of State Contract Number: S-ECAGD-18-CA0030 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan Award Amount: $460,000.00 Period of Performance: 9/19/2018 – 8/30/23

SELECTED RECENT US-BASED PROJECTS

Improvement of Elementary Fractions Instruction: RCT of Lesson Study with Fractions Resource Kit and Local Curriculum

Funding Agency: Mills College Principal Investigator: Robert Schoen Award Amount: $743,076.00 Period of Performance: 9/1/2015 – 8/31/2019

Peace Corps Professional Campus Recruitment Services

Funding Agency: U.S. Peace Corps Contract Number: PC-15-8-069 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan Award Amount: $75,775.00 Period of Performance: 8/14/2015 to 7/31/2019

Florida Inclusion Network, Administration

Funding Agency: Florida Department of Education Agency Contract Number: 371-2629B-9C004 Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Milligan Award Amount: $939,231.00 Period of Performance: 7/1/2018 – 6/30/2019

CPALMS and Student Tutorials

Funding Agency: Florida Department of Education Contract Number: 371-99635-9S001 Principal Investigator: Rabieh Razzouk Award Amount: $2,375,000.00 Period of Performance: 7/1/2018 – 6/30/2019 http://www.cpalms.org/Public/search/Resource

CPALMS: Alliance for Arts Education

Funding Agency: Florida Alliance for Arts Education Principal Investigator: Rabieh Razzouk Award Amount: $4,800.00 Period of Performance: 9/21/2018 – 6/5/2019 http://www.cpalms.org/Public/

Examining Teacher Math Anxiety as a Malleable Factor Related to Student Outcomes

Funding Agency: U. S. Department of Education / IES Contract Number: R305A170463 Principal Investigator: Colleen Ganley Award Amount: $1,400,000.00 Period of Performance: 7/1/2017 – 6/30/2020

Evaluation of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program

Funding Agency: Florida Department of Education Contract Number: 371-93110-9P001 Principal Investigator: Carolyn Herrington Award Amount: $500,000.00 Period of Performance: 7/1/2018 – 6/30/2020

Follow-up to the Replicating the CGI Experiment in Diverse Environments Study

Funding Agency: U. S. Department of Education / IES Contract Number: R305A180429 Principal Investigator: Robert Schoen Award Amount: $1,100,000.00 Period of Performance: 7/1/2018 – 6/30/2020

Foundations for Success: Developing Effective Mathematics Educators through Cognitively Guided Instruction

Funding Agency: U.S. Department of Education Agency Contract Number: U423A180115 Principal Investigator: Robert Schoen Award Amount: $9,733,865.00 Period of Performance: 10/1/2018 – 9/30/2021

DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

Transforming Teacher Education in Zambia

The Learning Systems Institute (LSI) at Florida State University in partnership with the University of Zambia and School to School (StS) to implement a five-year, $15 million project sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to improve pre-service teacher education in Zambia. The objective of Transforming Teacher Education (TTE) is to strengthen the capacity of Zambia’s preservice teacher training institutions to improve student-learning outcomes. Despite significant investments in early grade literacy in Zambia, pre-service teacher education has largely been excluded from those programs. TTE aims to align pre-service education with current, evidence-based practices in primary schools and in-service education programs. This activity will help to ensure that all teachers will enter the classroom prepared to help children learn how to read and to provide safe learning environments more broadly.

TTE has three specific aims under the overarching objective. First, TTE will equip targeted colleges of education (COE) and university faculty and lecturers with the skills and experience necessary to deliver effective instruction to teachers in training. We will do this by offering several types of education and training for lecturers, including six-month residencies at Florida State University (FSU), graduate-level foundational courses on reading to be delivered in Zambia, study tours, and scholarships for master’s programs in the School of Education at Florida State University. Second, TTE will standardize, align, and link practical, evidence-based, pre-service teacher training and content with the primary school literacy curriculum. This will involve revisions to the Language and Literacy and Practicum courses at the COEs and universities, training for lecturers on the new materials, provision of text resources to COEs and universities, and the development of Centers of Excellence in Pre-Service Teacher Education.

Third, TTE will equip pre-service teachers in Colleges of Education and universities with the professional skills necessary to deliver quality literacy instruction in primary schools. TTE will do this by scaffolding closer relationships with demonstration schools, creating feedback loops that will better serve the demonstration schools, the COEs/universities, and the student teachers alike. Anticipated results include improved knowledge and pedagogy regarding early grade reading instruction among lecturers and preservice teacher education students, greater capacity among lecturers to conduct research relevant to early grade reading and pre-service teacher education, professional learning networks among lecturers, and increased knowledge of teacher professional ethics. We expect that these results will positively impact student-learning outcomes as the newly trained teachers enter classrooms in the coming years.

The TTE consortium will be led by Florida State University, with support from partners School-to-School International and the University of Zambia’s School of Education.

FSU Press Release:

https://news.fsu.edu/news/education-society/2020/10/15/usaid-florida-state-university-partnershipset-to-boost-teacher-training-systems-in-zambia/

USAID-Florida State University partnership set to boost teacher training systems in Zambia

**Dr. Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski, an associate professor with the Learning Systems Institute and director of the USAID Transforming Teacher Education Program. (Florida State University)**

BY: BILL WELLOCK | PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 15, 2020

The Learning Systems Institute (LSI) at Florida State University will lead a five-year, $15 million project sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to improve pre-service teacher training in Zambia. LSI faculty, in collaboration with partners School-to-School International and the University of Zambia, will work with 12 universities and colleges of education in the country to improve the training of primary grade teachers. “This project is an exciting opportunity for FSU to take a lead role in improving primary teacher education at a national level, building on lessons learned in our previous projects in countries such as Nigeria and Ethiopia,” said Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski, an LSI associate professor and the project’s director.

Over the five-year period, the “USAID Transforming Teacher Education Program” will give more than 60 Zambian teacher educators the skills to deliver effective instruction to 9,000 college and university students studying to become primary grade teachers.

Despite significant investments in early-grade literacy in Zambia, pre-service teacher education has been largely excluded from previous development programs. This work will connect teacher training with the evidence-based practices already used in Zambian primary schools, ensuring that teachers enter the classroom prepared to help children learn how to read and to provide safe learning environments. “This is an excellent opportunity for Professor Zuilkowski and the LSI team to use their years of research and experience to help improve teacher training in Zambia and thus the greater educational system in the

country,” said Vice President for Research Gary K. Ostrander. “We are incredibly proud of the work they do and are excited to see what they will achieve with this new project.”

To implement the program, LSI faculty will deliver graduate-level courses on reading instruction in Zambia. Six Zambian teacher education faculty will complete six-month residencies at the FSU College of Education, and four faculty members will receive scholarships to obtain master’s degrees in education at FSU. Florida State will also organize study tours for additional Zambian faculty. With USAID support, FSU faculty and Zambian educators will work together to better connect teacher training with the country’s primary school literacy curriculum. The project team will revise pre-service teacher training courses, develop new textbooks for teachers and create centers of excellence dedicated to training new teachers.

The project also will build relationships between teaching colleges and universities and primary schools. Those connections will give teachers-in-training opportunities to practice their skills and provide settings where lecturers can conduct participatory action research about early-grade reading. “Transforming Teacher Education brings the Learning Systems Institute to a whole new level of engagement in international educational development,” said Jeffrey Milligan, director of the Learning Systems Institute. “For the first time in 25 years, LSI will assume overall leadership for a large, nationwide, multiyear USAID project. LSI has a long legacy of international engagement, and this new project positions us to compete effectively for new international projects in the coming years.” The Learning Systems Institute has partnered with USAID on several previous projects. LSI is a partner on the Northern Education Initiative Plus project, which is underway in two northern Nigerian states to train teaching instructors and learning facilitators in early grades reading instruction.

LSI also worked with Bayero University, Kano in Nigeria to establish the Nigerian Center for Reading Research and Development, the first reading research center in the country. As part of that initiative, faculty from Bayero University, Kano visited Florida State to take graduate classes in education and to work with faculty mentors to design and implement a research project they carried out when they returned to Nigeria.

“LSI faculty have extensive experience working with college and university faculty, teachers and government education officials around the world to improve the teaching of early grade reading, including in conflict-affected and complex multilingual settings,” Zuilkowski said. In the past decade, LSI faculty have also worked on USAID-funded education activities in Honduras, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia and Indonesia, as well as U.S. Department of State projects in Indonesia, India, Ukraine, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Pakistan, Egypt, St. Lucia, Grenada and Suriname.

On behalf of the American people, USAID promotes and demonstrates democratic values in over 80 countries around the globe, and advances a free, peaceful, and prosperous world. In support of America’s foreign policy, the Agency leads the U.S. Government’s international development and disaster assistance through partnerships and investments that save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance, and help people emerge from humanitarian crises and progress beyond assistance.

POSTED IN: EDUCATION & SOCIETY | TAGGED: FSUGLOBAL, LEARNING SYSTEMS INSTITUTE, STEPHANIE SIMMONS ZUILKOWSKI

Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program (UEEP)

Funding Agency: USAID Central Asia/RTI International Florida State University is a partner to RTI International on the UEEP project Principal Investigators: Rabieh Razzouk with Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi Award Amount: USD $3.4 Million Period of Performance: 2019-2023

**Dr. Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi (FSU) with fellow RTI International researchers visiting Samarkand, Uzbekistan**

The Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program (UEEP) is a new initiative sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Science, Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (STIP) in Higher Education Annual Program Statement. RTI International and its partners, Florida State University and Mississippi State University are the implementers of the four-year program.

In July 2019, Mr. Rabieh Razzouk (PI) and Dr. Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi (Co-PI) traveled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan representing LSI at FSU to participate in the ‘co-creation’ process. The one-week co-creation involved presentations by RTI International, MSU, and FSU followed by discussions with USAID, the Uzbek Ministry of Public Education and other stakeholders. The Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program was launched after a few months of deliberation, and in February 2020, the FSU team went back to Tashkent for the Co-Creation Workshops.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is realigning and reorienting its policies, strategies, and program practices to improve how it supports each country on the Journey to Self-Reliance—a country’s ability to plan, finance, and implement solutions to address its own

development challenges in a sustainable way. For the program, this means a focus on technical and managerial inputs that build the capacity of the Ministry of Public Education (MPE) in Uzbekistan to design and test, monitor, and learn from effective solutions. The Program will place added attention on using the lessons from pilot implementation to design sustainable scale-up strategies and plans, including identifying resource mobilization requirements.

The Ministry of Public Education in Uzbekistan is committed to an ambitious program of systematic and comprehensive reforms. The country aims to create an education system that can produce graduates with the critical thinking, problem solving, and practical skills that will enable them to succeed. USAIDCentral Asia has put in place an agreement with MPE for the Uzbekistan Education Reform Program. This program commits USAID to support the goal of sustainably improving the reading, math, information and communication technology (ICT), and English skills of students in the country’s public schools. Future students, therefore, will be more employable and/or more likely to gain acceptance into university studies. To attain the desired improvements in learning, MPE and USAID have agreed on a collaboration to achieve three components:

• Component 1: Improve reading and math outcomes in grades 1–4 • Component 2: Support IT Nation initiatives for grades 5-11 • Component 3: Improve English language instruction for grades 1-11

RTI International is collaborating with Mississippi State University (MSU) and Florida State University (FSU) to provide the expertise and experience needed to help MPE achieve and sustain the above results. The program description benefits from the insights and agreements obtained during the co-creation workshop held in Tashkent, July 22–26, 2019. Again, the FSU representatives Mr. Rabieh Razzouk and Dr. Flavia Ramos Mattoussi traveled to Uzbekistan to participate in collaborative meetings with the Uzbek counterparts in Tashkent.

MPE colleagues from all concerned technical departments attended the workshop sessions, actively assisting the RTI team in understanding the needs, opportunities, and challenges present in the education sector. As a result, the Program now aligns its activities more closely to MPE’s needs, including taking into account and complementing other projects and initiatives.

At the close of the co-creation workshop, Minister of Education Sherzod Shermatov reaffirmed the guiding principles of quality, justice, and transparency that govern the reform agenda in the education sector. A commitment to quality is reflected in the Program’s focus on helping Uzbekistan adopt best practice approaches to standards-based education and state-of-the-art teacher professional development strategies. The Program will also assist MPE in making sure resources and support enhance equity and justice—advising MPE in developing and testing strategies that can be successful even in districts with fewer resources. In addition, the Program’s approach to instruction includes enabling teachers to focus on equity and inclusion, by responding to the needs of male and female students, as well as supporting students who are struggling and extending opportunities for those who are advanced. Lastly, throughout the co-creation process, MPE emphasized the importance of capacity development as key to sustainability. The Program’s approach is therefore centered on helping MPE on its journey to self-reliance by developing the technical, managerial, and operational capacities needed for MPE to put in place a standards-based education system.

**FSU, MSU, and RTI implementing partners during the co-creation meeting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in February 2020**

USAID Collaboration with Nigeria’s Bayero University in Kano Strengthens Early Grade Reading in Nigeria

U.S. Mission Nigeria

Over the past three years, a unique collaboration between the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Nigeria’s Bayero University in Kano (BUK), and Florida State University (FSU) in the United States has helped Africa’s most populous country strengthen its ability to teach early grade reading, the foundation of lifelong learning.

This activity supported the training and mentorship of six BUK Faculty Fellows on cutting-edge research, teacher training, and the process of publishing academic articles during a six-month residency at the FSU Learning Systems Institute. The partnership culminated in establishment of a new Nigerian Center for Reading Research and Development on the BUK campus.

A participant speaks at the First National Conference on Children’s Books and the Teaching of Early Grade Reading in Nigeria, organized by the NCRRD in August 2019.

Professors Amina Adamu (left) and Aisha Umar Tsiga (second right) of BUK, with Stephanie Zuilkowski (second left), and Adrienne Barnes (right) of Florida State University, at the Learning Systems Institute on the FSU campus in Tallahassee, Florida.

**Literacy Conference at Bayero University Kano, Nigeria**

“This new focus on raising this quality of teaching and learning was borne out of the realization that reading is fundamental to education,” said Prof. Muhammad Yahuza Bello, Vice-Chancellor of BUK. “No nation can achieve meaningful development without inculcating effective reading skills amongst its growing generations.”

Now a permanent part of the BUK community, the new Research Center will facilitate research on all matters that affect reading and the teaching of early grade reading in Nigeria. The six BUK Faculty Fellows are thought leaders, researchers and champions for the adoption of the best teaching and learning practices in reading throughout Nigeria.

During their time on the Tallahassee, Florida campus, the BUK Fellows participated in scholarly activities, published journal articles, and presented their work at educational forums.

In coordination with other USAID activities, the fledgling Center hosted two national conferences attended by more than 800 education stakeholders at the national, state, and local levels to share and publicize reading research findings for the Nigerian context.

Professor Umar Kabir, one of the first two NCRRD fellows who had advanced training at the Florida State University, stands in front of the Westcott Fountain at FSU

“At USAID we have a passion for education and high hopes for its future in Nigeria,” Mission Director Stephen M. Haykin said. “In that spirit, this partnership played a critical role in ensuring the next generation of Nigerian children is equipped with the reading skills that will serve as the basis for a lifetime of learning.”

The partnership promises to benefit education in Nigeria for years to come, having developed a new cadre of leaders and trainers in reading research who will champion the advancement of high-quality reading instruction, learning and research for future generations of teachers in primary grade reading strategies to effectively teach more children to enjoy a lifetime of reading.

The Center also serves as a clearinghouse where education stakeholders can leverage data and approaches to effect positive changes in the classroom and improve learning across Nigeria through stronger reading curricula for millions of students.

Research shows that a child who starts to read in a language he or she understands will be better equipped to take on learning a foreign language in later grades, and ultimately get more out of his or her education.

Since 2015, USAID has embraced this concept, distributing more than three million books and teacher’s guides for early grade reading in Hausa and English in the north. Similar materials are under development in Igbo and Yoruba to serve children in other areas of Nigeria.

**BUK Fellow at Florida State University**

**BUK fellows Dr. Bala Danyaro Aminu (left), an NCRRD fellow who teaches Education Professor Talatu Musa Garba (right) who teaches Language Arts meets FSU Dean Damon Andrew on the campus.**

**The NCRRD building under construction in 2019**

The NCRRD building under construction earlier this year. Its permanent presence will help improve reading instruction in Nigeria for decades to come. Nigeria’s education system is challenged to keep pace with its rapidly growing population. USAID works to strengthen state and local education systems in partnership with all Nigerians. The Center is an important step forward to deepening early grade reading resources available in Nigeria.

Education Nigeria Reading Kano USAID

WRITTEN BY U.S. Mission Nigeria Follow UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC MISSION IN NIGERIA. FOR OFFICIAL INFORMATION VISIT HTTP://NG.USEMBASSY.GOV Tagged @lsifsu

The Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year!

Posted on November 26, 2019

Learning Systems Institute 50Th Anniversary Logo

Design by Marc Thomas

Tagged #FSUglobal, @lsifsu

Discover how the Learning Systems Institute (1969-2019) has worked to improve learning and performance in Florida and around the world for the last 50 years.

Posted on November 26, 2019 Created by Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University

By: Robert Lengacher, Learning Systems Institute

Music from https://filmmusic.io | “Imagefilm 041,” “Total Happy Up And Sunny,” and “Imagefilm 018” by Sascha Ende (https://www.sascha-ende.de) | License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Learning Systems Institute (1969-2019)

Florida State researchers improve teacher training and childhood literacy in Nigeria

Posted on November 26, 2019 https://news.fsu.edu/news/education-society/2019/11/26/fsuglobal-florida-state-researchersimprove-teacher-training-and-childhood-literacy-in-nigeria/

**ANA MARTY, LEFT, A LEARNING SYSTEMS INSTITUTE RESEARCH FACULTY MEMBER, AT BAYERO UNIVERSITY IN KANO, NIGERIA, WITH UNIVERSITY FACULTY MEMBERS TALATU MUSA GARBA AND AMINA ADAMU. COURTESY OF ANA MARTY.**

BY: BILL WELLOCK | PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 26, 2019

A first-grade classroom in northeast Nigeria can be a difficult place to learn. Classes might be filled with 100 students, and although many children speak a regional language called Kanuri, teachers often give classes in Hausa, a wider-used lingua franca. Many of the students’ parents can’t read. Teachers may not be adequately trained. And classes are happening in a region where Boko Haram has launched attacks against schools and kidnapped students. It’s in this challenging environment that researchers from Florida State University’s Learning Systems Institute are working to improve the educational landscape. Supported by $2.6 million in funding, researchers have embarked on a series of projects to improve teacher training and literacy to help these students gain some ground. The Learning Systems Institute, an internationally recognized, university-based research and development organization, has a long history of work in Nigeria. On a trip to the region this year, Associate Professor of International and Multicultural Education Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski saw a gleaming new school. She complimented the headmaster on the

facility, and he informed her it was brand-new. It had been rebuilt after Boko Haram burned down the building for the third time. “They just come back, and they build it again, and they keep on going,” Zuilkowski said. “It’s impressive. It speaks to people’s commitment to not letting Boko Haram win.”

TEACHER TRAINING

Millions of students across northern Nigeria will benefit from a pair of projects funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The institute is a partner in the Northern Education Initiative Plus, a project to train about 20,000 teaching instructors and learning facilitators in reading instruction for young students. The project is implemented by the international development organization Creative Associates International. The intervention helped teachers move from theory to practice in their classrooms. Instruction changed from simply exposing students to texts to classes that focus on developing skills. One lesson involved writing letters on bottlecaps and teaching students that each cap represented a sound. The method teaches students to listen for individual sounds and to assign that sound to a letter. When students recognize the letter-sound correlations, they can combine the bottlecaps to create words. For the teachers, it was practice delivering lessons on phonics and vocabulary. “They talked a lot about it, theoretically, but even the teacher-educators themselves had no idea how to actually do that in practice,” said Adrienne Barnes, an LSI research faculty member and the principal investigator for the project. In February, LSI members will visit the country to assess its impact. Institute researchers are involved in other efforts to train the next generation of teachers in the country by establishing a reading research center at Bayero University in the city of Kano. As part of that USAID initiative, students from the university visit Florida State for a six-month period to take graduate classes in education and to work with a faculty mentor to design and implement a research project they carry out when they return to Nigeria. It’s an important step toward long-term, sustainable progress in the country, said Zuilkowski, the principal investigator. Projects that rely on foreign experts eventually end. This project will create local experts in childhood reading and research, and their understanding of the on-the-ground conditions will lead to reading interventions specifically designed for Nigerian students. “They are getting a really in-depth understanding of the current state of the research about what we know about how kids learn how to read,” she said. “We’re already starting to see that different organizations are reaching out to them when they return to work as consultants on their projects, which is really exciting because that tells us that other organizations value what we are doing and the skills the faculty are getting.”

A NEW CURRICULUM

The institute is also giving primary students in northeast Nigeria a chance to take elementary school classes in their mother tongue. When students in that region start school, they often come from Kanuri-speaking homes. Their instruction, however, is in Hausa and English. An LSI project funded by the United

Kingdom’s Department for International Development through UNICEF developed a curriculum for Kanuri-speaking students.

FSU researchers took a curriculum for early literacy and mathematics classes that had been developed in Hausa and worked with local translators and teachers to adapt it into Kanuri and test it with second-grade students. The curriculum is now being used in first, second and third-grade classrooms in two northeast Nigerian states. Local partnerships were especially important for this work, Zuilkowski said. The researchers who were trained by FSU were able to go into areas that would have been dangerous for her and her colleagues in order to gather information on educational outcomes that was essential for testing the effectiveness of the intervention. When the final product was ready for publication, the creators needed to name it. The local educators who worked with FSU researchers proposed “KARI,” which stands for “Kanuri Arithmetic and Reading Intervention.” It has a second meaning. In the Kanuri language, “kari” means “light” or “torch.” “They were very excited with the name,” said Ana Marty, an LSI research faculty member and the principal investigator for the project. “It’s like this torch and this light that is coming to the schools with these materials. The children are learning to read in their language that they know from home. They come to first grade speaking Kanuri and now they see these materials and they can understand them because it’s the language that they know.” As LSI continues its work around the globe, future plans in Nigeria could include creating a professional development program for teachers in the country. For more information on LSI, visit lsi.fsu.edu.

POSTED IN: EDUCATION & SOCIETY | TAGGED: ADRIENNE BARNES, ANA MARTY, COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, FSU LEARNING SYSTEMS INSTITUTE, FSUGLOBAL, STEPHANIE SIMMONS ZUILKOWSKI

The Nigeria Center for Reading and Development at BUK held a national reading conference in Kano, Nigeria

**FSU faculty members join BUK faculty at the National Reading Conference in Kano, Nigeria**

Posted on August 26, 2019 In August 2019, the Nigeria Centre for Reading Research and Development held the National Reading Conference at Bayero University, Kano. Approximately 800 participants attended the conference organized by BUK with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Northern Education Initiative Plus (NEI+). Institutions and book vendors represented many states from all over Nigeria. Drs. Adrienne Barnes, Nicole Patton Terry, Stephanie Zuilkowski, and Jarret (Jay) Terry represented the Florida State University. The Nigeria Centre for Reading Research and Development was established as a result of the partnership between the Learning Systems Institute at FSU and the Bayero University, Kano. For the last two years, several scholars from BUK have come to Tallahassee, Florida to engage with FSU faculty and students, participate in graduate studies and research related to early grade reading instruction. Several faculty members from the Learning Systems Institute and the College of Education have collaborated with BUK in Nigeria on developing curriculum and materials for early grade reading. They have also conducted numerous workshops for teacher educators in Nigeria and mentored university scholars in their journey towards excellence in reading research and teaching. These efforts aim to prepare future generations of Nigerian school-teachers, and consequently improve children’s reading and literacy outcomes in the country. Find below the link to the program and FSU presentations from the National Reading Conference held 19-23 August 2019 at the Nigeria Centre for Reading Research and Development housed at Bayero University, Kano.

Bayero University, Kano Logo

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3Af6db8e00e02a-40ac-9e44-6247dd9e1bf8

**FSU and BUK faculty members at the Nigeria Center for Reading Research and Development in Kano, Nigeria**

How do teachers learn to teach reading and writing in Honduras? That’s what a team of researchers at FSU are trying to find out.

Posted on October 17, 2018 By: Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi In early 2018, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Government of Honduras launched the “readers to leaders” program (De Lectores a Líderes, also known as the USAID Honduras Reading Activity). The project implemented by Education Development Center (EDC) and its partner Florida State University (FSU) targets regions according to two Development Objectives (1) Citizen Security increased in high violence zones; and (2) Extreme poverty sustainably reduced. The five-year project is aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Ministry of Education to implement evidence-based reading approaches to improve the learning rates in reading and writing of at least 700,000 students from first to sixth grade in 2,500 schools across 60 municipalities; train more than 15,000 in-service teachers in evidence-based teaching practices; provide 1,000 existing or new school libraries with a collection of 1,200 books to promote reading opportunities. The “readers to leaders” project is also aimed at building the capacity of teacher educators at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Francisco Morazán (UPNFM) to address current educational reforms affecting the teacher certification requirements in the country. FSU’s main role in this project is to collaborate with the UPNFM faculty to better integrate educational standards and evidence-based teaching practices applied to both pre and in-service teacher training programs. FSU will support UPNFM faculty teaching in the Basic Education Program and provide professional development focused on early grade reading instruction. In September 2018, two research faculty members at the Learning Systems Institute at FSU, Dr. Ana Marty and Dr. Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi traveled to Honduras for one month to assess the current situation and readiness of UPNFM faculty, administrators and students to effectively embrace the new curriculum and impart evidence-based teaching practices aligned with current efforts to reform academic standards and formative assessments. The FSU team conducted a mixed-methods baseline assessment of how “lectoescritura” is being taught at the pre-service level, examining administrative structures, teaching methods, and specific strengths and constraints in the context of the UPNFM in Tegucigalpa as well as in its Regional Centers in Gracias, Santa Barbara, La Ceiba, and San Pedro Sula. They observed numerous classes at UPNFM and at primary schools; administered 134 surveys, and conducted interviews and focus groups with faculty, administrators, and students at all sites visited to better understand the context of reading and writing instruction in the Basic Education and Spanish Language Programs in Honduras. Dr. Ana H. Marty was interviewed by TeleCeibaTV Station in La Ceiba during a site visit to the UPNFM Regional Center. See Link to interview in Spanish: https://www.facebook.com/teleceiba/videos/1473308819479866/

From Readers to Leaders: The Learning Systems Institute at FSU launches a new project in Honduras

**FSU-LSI Faculty: Drs. Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, Ana Marty, and Adrienne Branes in Tegucigalpa, Honduras**

Posted on July 9, 2018

In June 2018, three faculty members from the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) at the Florida State University (FSU) traveled to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras to launch a new initiative to support country’s efforts to improve the reading performance of students in grades one to six. FSU will work with the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN) Francisco Morazán to develop a new curriculum for pre-service teacher education as the country implements new policies that require higher educational standards for elementary school teachers. This initiative is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the Education Development Center. FSU is a partner to EDC on the implementation of the 5-year project “De Lectores a Líderes” in Honduras (2018-2023).FSU expects to welcome five representatives from the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN) Francisco Morazán and the Honduran Ministry of Education to Tallahassee soon.

**Drs. Adrienne Barnes, Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, and Ana Marty from FSU-LSI visit the campus of Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN) Francisco Morazán in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. 20218**

**Drs. Adrienne Barnes, Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, and Ana Marty join "Readers to Leaders" project personnel at EDC Office in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. June 28, 2018**

LSI faculty members have years of experience with pre-service teacher training projects. Recently, the FSU-LSI team led the pre-service training component of READ-TA in Ethiopia, as a subcontractor to RTI International. Working in seven national languages, LSI faculty have developed course content and textbooks, as well as training hundreds of teacher educators from 36 colleges of teacher education across the country in the new curriculum.

LSI faculty also developed content and training preservice teacher faculty in Indonesia, under the USAID Indonesia Teacher Training Partnership (subcontractor to RTI International). The FSU-LSI team is currently working in Nigeria, as part of the Northern Education Initiative Plus (subcontractor to Creative Associates). In addition, FSU is partnering with Bayero University-Kano to establish the Nigerian Center for Reading Research and Development.

For more information about projects implemented by the Center for International Studies in Educational Research and Development (CISERD) at the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) at the Florida State University (FSU) visit our website: https://lsi.fsu.edu/ciserd/

New publication by RTI Press explores the many ways in which teachers around the world are supported throughout their professional careers to improve teaching and learning.

Posted on November 5, 2018 BY: Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi

New publication by RTI Press explores the many ways in which teachers around the world are supported throughout their professional careers to improve teaching and learning. Thanks to David Evans, Silvia Montoya, Sharath Jeevan for reviews and to all co-authors including Tifa Asrianti, Adrienne Barnes, Guy Bostock, Nancy Clark-Chiarelli, Stephen Backman, Marion Fesmire, Jarret Guajardo, Karon H. Molly Hamm-Rodríguez, Simon King, Scott Kipp, Lee Nordstrum, Dawit Mekonnen, Alison Pflepsen, Mitchell Rakusin, Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, Emily Richardson, Timothy Slade. You can download the book “Cultivating Dynamic Educators: Case Studies in Teacher Behavior Change in Africa and Asia” by Sarah Remington Pouezevara from the RTO Press website. https://www.rti.org/rti-presspublication/cultivating-dynamic-educators

In Chapter 2: “Changing Teacher Educators’

Conceptions and Practices Around Literacy Instruction: Lessons from Teacher Educators’ Professional Development Experiences in

Ethiopia” the Florida State University team examined the contribution of the pre-service interventions within the Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ-TA) program, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from October 2012 through December 2017. The Learning Systems Institute at FSU was a partner to RTI International on the RAD TA project from 2012 to 2017. The FSU team worked in five regions of the country, targeting seven national languages. Ethiopia has two chartered cities (Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa) plus nine national region states: Afar; Amhara; Benishangul-Gumuz; Gambela; Harari; Oromia; Somali; Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR); and Tigray. As of early 2018, more than 20 local languages were being used as languages of instruction in Ethiopia. READ-TA targeted seven of the most widely spoken languages of instruction.

The professional development activities implemented by the FSU/LSI team of researchers and teacher educators included engagement of Ethiopian educators in module development, adaptation of the modules and related materials into seven mother tongues, and training on the module contents. The pre-service teacher education program prepares student teachers to teach in the mother tongue used as the language of instruction in grades 1–8 in each of the nine regions of the country. Of particular interest were revisions of the mother tongue pre-service teacher education program and the related professional development for teacher educators and student teachers (we use the term teacher educators to refer to the lecturers and instructors at the colleges of teacher education and the term

**Drs. Dawit Mekonnen, Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, and Marion Fesmire**

student teachers to refer to the students at colleges of teacher education, also referred to in Ethiopia as “teacher-trainees” and “would-be-teachers”).

The chapter describes the extent to which teacher educators’ involvement across multiple initiatives promoted changes in conceptions of literacy instruction; depth of understanding of literacy content; and student-centered, participatory teaching and learning pedagogy.

Suggested citation: Mekonnen, D., Fesmire, M., Barnes, A., Backman, S., Ramos-Mattoussi, F. (2018). Changing Teacher Educators’ Conceptions and Practices on Literacy Instruction: Lessons from Teacher Educators’ Professional Development Experiences in Ethiopia. In Pouezevara, S. R. (Ed.) (2018). Cultivating dynamic educators: Case studies in teacher behavior change in Africa and Asia. (RTI Press Publication No. BK-0022-1809). Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press. DOI: 10.3768/rtipress. 2018.bk.0022.1809. https://www.rti.org/rti-press-publication/cultivating-dynamic-educators

Photo: Dr. Dawit Mekonnen of the University of Addis Ababa and FSU National Coordinator in Ethiopia, Dr. Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, center, the principal investigator on FSU’s element of the Read-TA project, and Dr. Marion Fesmire of FSU Panama City wear gowns and scarves given them by their colleagues in Ethiopia, where FSU has been working since 2013 on an ambitious reading-and-writing program.

Nigeria Northern Education Initiative Plus (NEI+)

LSI received an award from Creative Associates International as a subcontractor on the Northern Education Initiative Plus for Nigeria. The five-year project has the goal of improving early reading skills in two states in the north of Nigeria that have struggled with educational quality as well as regional instability. FSU’s main work focuses on preservice teacher education institutions in the use of the evidence-based reading materials improved and implemented, as well as developing Professional Learning Communities through the building of capacity in early grade reading of state and federal partners and stakeholders.

FSU collaborates with the National Commission of Colleges of Education (NCCE) and Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) to develop pre-service early grade reading syllabi and instruction courses for teacher trainees. FSU has been charged with NEI Plus leadership in pre-service teacher training and curriculum development in Hausa and English reading instruction, as grounded in the latest research and best practices. The NEI Plus team will work with NCCE and TEIs to build pre-service training, including syllabi and EGR course content. The team will work with NCCE, TEIs, and agencies to improve and expand the use of teaching practicums to shift the emphasis to practical learning in pre-service training and ensure that TEIs in all states are in possession of the materials needed to integrate reading coursework into pre-service teacher preparation.

NEI Plus has involved pre-service instructors and personnel in the Reading Technical Working Group (RTWG) to ensure that materials for teachers’ classroom use, in-service training and modules, and preservice EGR instruction support are aligned. This process ensures that successive cohorts of teacher trainees begin their careers equipped with a full set of instructional skills that will have a direct, positive impact on students’ EGR outcomes.

We estimate that by the end of the project 2,250 teachers will have completed the NEI Plus pre-service EGR program in two states and will reach 225,000 students in grades 1-3 with best practices in EGR instruction, resulting in improved student reading outcomes.

In addition, because FSU faculty have experience teaching graduate-level courses in literacy education, NEI Plus solicited FSU faculty to teach two cohorts of a four-month, graduate-level course in early grade reading: Literacy Skills in the Primary School: A course for Teacher Educators, Researchers, and National Stakeholders. The certified course graduates then applied their learning to participate in Professional Learning Communities and engage in Community Outreach activities in order to build community knowledge about home literacy practices, supporting children and teachers, and school attendance.

Finally, FSU experts have contributed research on such topics as integrated Qur’anic schools, community and culture roles, mainstreaming pupils into formal education, and best practices in early grade reading in the northern Nigerian context.

**A course for Teacher Educators, Researchers, and National Stakeholders in Nigeria**

FSU’s Learning Systems Institute aids Education Crisis Response Project in Northern Nigeria

Posted on August 7, 2017

The Northern Nigeria Education-in-Conflict Response Program (ECR) will draw to a close in October 2017. This project was funded by USAID and implemented by Creative Associates International, in partnership with the International Rescue Committee, Florida State University, and local organizations. The initiative began in 2014 to address the gaps in education that internally displaced children and youth face due the ongoing conflict in the Northeastern states in Nigeria.

Internally displaced people (IDP) have had to flee their homes due to insurgency, violence and environmental risks; schools have been burned down in some communities and have stopped operating. Thus, to address a potentially growing educational crisis, the ECR project goal was to provide technical assistance to the Nigerian state governments, by collaboratively designing and delivering instruction in basic literacy, numeracy and social and emotional learning to IDP children and youth. Working with communities with high numbers of IDPs, the project established Non-Formal Learning Centers (NFLC) in the states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe, and recently Borno. Communities participated in the establishment of the centers and assumed the day to day direction of the NFLCs. Lesson content was to include literacy, numeracy and social and emotional learning skills in an integrated fashion.

Experts from the Florida State University (FSU)’s Learning Systems Institute, were invited to work with Creative Associates International and International Rescue Committee on the design of an early grade literacy scope and sequence and then a related set of early grade literacy (Hausa) scripted lessons to guide NFLC facilitators. FSU also worked with the ECR numeracy team to provide technical feedback and quality control. The lessons were designed to align with the non-formal curriculum used by Nigeria’s State Agencies for Mass Education. In particular, FSU’s team drafted over one hundred scripted lessons, incorporating social and emotional learning messages, for Hausa and reviewed XX lessons for numeracy. The Hausa lessons incorporated existing Hausa language stories for the early grades, developed by a previous project. International Rescue Committee took part in the Social Emotional Learning. The program established learning centers complete with trained staff to teach the three subjects. The goal of these centers is to help the children transition back into formal education one day. Currently, the children come to the centers for a few hours, several days a week.

In the first year, 296 learning centers were set up and reached over 14,000 learners. In the second year, 408 learning centers reached over 25,000 children. Creative Associates International conducted baseline, ongoing, and end line assessments of the project. The results are promising. The following tables were taken from the USAID Report: “Education Crisis Response Year 2 End Line Assessment Year 2” from November 2016. See citation at the end of this article.

**Learning facilitator Mark Philemon delivers instructions to learners at the Jambutu Non-Formal Learning Center in Yola, Adamawa state, in Nigeria.**

• 16 percentage point increase of learners at highest literacy levels, meaning 16% more learners read at the highest level at the end of year two. • 45 percentage point decrease of learners at lowest levels, meaning 45% less learners read at a level zero at the end of year two.

• 26 percentage point decrease of learners at lowest levels, meaning 26% more learners could now recognize numbers and moved the numeracy level scale.

Positive change from baseline to end line was also seen in the various Social-Emotional Learning scales. Please see results from that in the aforementioned USAID report.

The implication of the results is that the lessons were quite successful. Given that they were developed rapidly, not under the best of circumstances, since the project had to work fast, this is impressive and promising for the future of education in Northeastern Nigeria. Moving forward, the FSU team suggests expanding the centers and working with older IDP in the future.

From left, Musa Avenda, community coalition Chairman, Yola-North LGA, Helen Boyle of Florida State University’s Learning Systems Institute, and Torchau Musa, Secretary YolaNorth community coalition, during a visit to the Jambutu non-formal learning center in Yola, Adamawa state.

Article refers to: USAID Nigeria. (2016). Education Crisis Response Year 2 End Line Assessment Year 2. Washington, DC: Creative Associates International.

FCR-STEM gives Duval County teachers 3-D printer know-how to use in math, science classes

Posted on July 25, 2017

“The idea that you give kids at a young age the ability to render things in 3D and they’ll be able to transfer that one day to the manufacturing field is fantastic,” Alexandra Vlachakis, Duval’s career and tech education executive director for STEM, IT and computer science, told the Florida Times-Union’s Denise Smith Amos.

In today’s Florida Times-Union, read about how FCR-STEM provides high-quality professional development using 3-D technology: http://jacksonville.com/metro/education/news/2017-0724/teachers-learn-3d-printers-new-way-challenge-excite-students.

Emma Pugh, at left, a mathematics coach at Westview K-8 School, and Ming Ziang, center, who teachers algebra at Frank H. Peterson Academies of Technology, learn how teachers can use 3-D printer in STEM classes. At right is Marisa Benz of FSU’s Florida Center for Research in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, which conducted professional development for Pugh and Ziang and dozens of other science and math teachers in Duval County.

Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ –TA)

FUNDING AGENCY: USAID/RTI International PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi with Jeffrey Milligan Contract # - 2-330-0213559 AWARD AMOUNT: $2.4 million PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE: 2012-2017

READ TA was a five-year project supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by RTI International and its partners, including the Florida State University.

The Learning Systems Institute at FSU supported the Ethiopian Ministry of Education in its efforts to develop a nationwide reading and writing program. The project was expected to reach 15 million children in all schools and all regions of Ethiopia. LSI provided technical assistance to Regional State Education Bureaus (RSEBs), Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs) and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education in curriculum and materials development for preservice teacher education.

From 2012 to 2018, the FSU/LSI team identified priority actions for improving the support for instruction of reading and writing in seven national languages; led several training workshops targeting 250 CTE mother tongue language instructors; and developed instructional materials for preservice teacher educators.

The LSI team developed seven modules in English and in seven national languages; and implemented training on each module, addressing the professional needs of 250 lecturers at 36 Colleges of Teacher Education in Ethiopia.

**Students try the new textbooks at a College of Teacher Education in Ethiopia**

**CTE Instructor applying new methods and materials for reading instruction in the classroom. Ethiopia, 2017**

FSU faculty members Drs. Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, Adrienne Barnes, and Marion Fesmire celebrate the end of a successful professional development workshop for 200 CTE instructors in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

USAID publishes online elements of LSI’s work in Ethiopia

**Mother Tongue Language Instructors work under the guidance of FSU faculty members to develop reading textbooks in seven local languages in Ethiopia. USAID/READ-TA Program.**

Posted on March 20, 2017

Teacher educators in Addis Ababa revise one of seven modules, or textbook chapters, developed by LSI’s team working in collaboration with Ethiopian education experts.

The Learning Systems Institute’s work in support of the READ TA project in Ethiopia is now available online from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The documents are on the USAID’s Development Experience Clearinghouse, a repository of technical reports and other publications produced with USAID funding. USAID is the lead U.S. agency that works to end extreme poverty and to support democratic societies around the world. READ TA — Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance — is a five-year project supported by USAID and implemented by RTI International and its partners, including Florida State

University’s Learning Systems Institute. LSI supports READ TA and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education in its efforts to develop a nationwide reading and writing program in grades 1 through 8. The project is expected to reach 15 million children in all schools and all regions of Ethiopia.

USAID has placed several documents created by LSI’s team in Ethiopia of its Development Experience Clearinghouse, including:

• Baseline Assessment of Pre-Service Teacher Education Programs at Colleges of Teacher Education in Ethiopia. http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pa00mhtb.pdf.

• Cognitive development and literacy skills. Module 1: MT 201(Saba) [Reading for

Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ

TA). http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pa00mmcw.pdf

• Cognitive development and literacy skills Module 1: MT 201 (Latin) [Reading for

Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READTA)] RTI

International, Florida State University —http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pa00mmcv.pdf

• Teaching speaking and listening in primary school Module 3: TMT 224[Reading for

Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ TA)] RTI

International, Florida State University http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pa00mmcz.pdf.

“We have been working in Ethiopia since 2013,” said Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi, Ed.D., Senior Research Associate at the Learning Systems Institute and Principal Investigator/Project Manager on FSU’s role in the READ-TA project. “First, trying to understand the context surrounding students, teachers, and those institutions responsible for producing the teachers of the future. We came to Ethiopia with a team of teacher educators and specialists in reading/literacy. Our task was to reform the pre-service teacher education system, including 36 Colleges of Teacher Education, develop course content and textbooks, and train the teacher educators to apply the new methods and materials in alignment with the primary school curriculum. Not a simple task, to say the least.” Nearly five years later, LSI’s has trained 250 teacher educators and produced seven modules for the pre-service teacher education program nationwide. “The FSU team worked very closely with the local people, educators and policymakers, who made sure what has been produced is relevant and culturally and linguistically appropriate to teachers and students alike,” Ramos-Mattoussi said. “And we did all this is seven national languages.” Ramos-Mattoussi, who returns to Ethiopia next week, said she was pleased that educators worldwide now have access to the RTI International/FSU documents. “I’m very happy when I see some of the work we did in Ethiopia, under the READ TA project implemented by RTI international, now made publicly accessible on DEC,” she said. To see all READ-TA documents posted by USAID, visit https://decsearch.usaid.gov/ and search “READ TA.” Read more about LSI’s work in Ethiopia at http://fla.st/2n1iW2I.

LSI continues work on teacher education in Northern Nigeria

Posted on March 2, 2017

**Dr. Adrienne Barnes (FSU) visiting a College of Education, Kangere- Nigeria**

Adrienne E. Barnes, Ph.D. from the Learning Systems Institute at the College of Education, Kangere, in the Bauchi state of Nigeria, where LSI is working to improve teacher education.

Barnes visits with students at a school in Bauchi state, where she was observing the teaching of the Mu Karanta! Let’s Read! Curriculum.

Adrienne E. Barnes, Ph.D., a Reading and Literacy Specialist with FSU’s Learning Systems Institute, recently returned from Nigeria, where she is part of LSI’s work in three states in the north of Nigeria that have struggled with educational quality as well as regional instability.

Dr. Barnes is part of LSI’s work to help with teacher training and curriculum development in Hausa and English reading instruction, employing the latest research and best practices.

Helen N. Boyle, Ph.D., Associate Professor of International and Comparative Education and a member of LSI’s research faculty, is the principal investigator on LSI’s role in the Northern Education Initiative Plus project administered by Creative Associates International.

**Dr. Adrienne Barnes with school children in Northern Nigeria**

Learn more about FSU’s work with the Nigeria Northern Education Initiative Plus at http://fla.st/2mfja8n.

After six weeks of study, Egyptian educators share insights and friendships with Florida State University, Santa Fe College and the U.S. Department of State

Posted on May 11, 2017 Educators and administrators from Egypt today joined international education experts from Florida State University, the U.S. Department of State and Santa Fe College to discuss what they had learned during six weeks of intensive study of the U.S. community college system.

Since April 2, the Egyptian educators have been in Florida as part of the Community College Administrator Program, an exchange initiative of the U.S. Department of State. They began their study at FSU’s Learning Systems Institute, which included conversations with Florida Legislature leaders and senior policy-makers with the Florida community college system, then continued at Santa Fe College in Gainesville before returning to FSU for a week of review.

Dr. Mostafa Amin Hassanein Abohashema, speaking at FSU’s Turnbull Center, gives a summary of the experiences of the Egyptian educators during their six weeks of study. He is professor and director of the Egyptian National Institute of Transport.

Everyone agreed the Community College Administrator Program was a learning experience for all involved.

**Egyptian Scholar participating in the Community College Administrator Program at FSU presents his capstone paper at Florida State University campus in Tallahassee, Florida.**

“We’ve learned so much from you,” said Jeffrey Ayala Milligan, director of the Learning Systems Institute. “We have made some good friends in Egypt, and you have some good friends here in Florida. We look forward to any way we can to continue to work with you in the future on projects that would be mutually beneficial.”

The Learning Systems Institute administers the program for the State Department, working with its partner Santa Fe College. In all, the participants gain a look at the philosophy and policies that form the foundation of the U.S. approach to community colleges and get training in the day-to-day challenges of administering an open-access institution.

The program is part of the State Department’s commitment to the belief that education builds friendships and fosters cooperation nation to nation.

“This is a great opportunity to have engagement around the professional field of education and technical and vocational education…,” said Larita Campbell, Program Officer in the State Department’s Office of Global Education Programs. “It is an important area of work across the world.”

Wasan Tawfeeq, an FSU doctoral student studying the Arabic language who assisted as an interpreter for the Community College Administrator Program, prepared a fine Mediterranean lunch for the Egyptian educators.

Campbell invited the members of the Egyptian delegation to stay engaged through the State Department’s International Exchange Alumni Network, an online virtual network that allows alumni from programs such as this one to connect and share insights on meeting the demands for education around the globe.

This is the sixth international group the Learning Systems Institute has brought to campus under the Community College Administrator Program. Educators from Indonesia, India, Ukraine, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have studied previously under the State Department initiative.

The State Department, the Learning Systems Institute and Santa Fe College will continue the Community College Administrator Program with four additional nations. Educators from Pakistan will come to FSU through the State Department exchange program in October, with groups from other nations to follow.

The Community College Administrator Program participants, and others. Larita Campbell, Program Director with the U.S. Department of State, is third from the left, on the top row; Jeffrey Ayala Milligan, Director of the Learning Systems Institute, is third from the right on front row; at center, next to Dr. Milligan, is Vilma Fuentes, Assistant Vice president for Academic Affairs at Santa Fe College.

Learn more about the Community College Administrator Program at https://lsi.fsu.edu/ccap/.

Egyptian educators come to FSU under the U.S. State Department program to study U.S. Community College system

President John Thrasher, at right, accepts a commemoration honoring FSU during a luncheon welcoming the Egyptian education administrators. From left: Dr. Nouran Abd El Hamid Ibrahim of Mansoura University; Anthony Koliha, director of the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Educational Programs; Dr. Ibrahim Elbesoumy of Alexandria Technical Institute; and Professor Dr. Essam Khamis Alhanash, deputy minister of higher education and research, Arab Republic of Egypt.

Posted on April 4, 2017

Florida State University President John Thrasher welcomed to campus a delegation of Egyptian educators who are at FSU to study the U.S. community colleges.

“It is an honor to host this program because we know how important community colleges can be in opening doors to new opportunities for so many people, whether in Egypt or here in the United States,” Thrasher said.

The educators are at FSU as part of a U.S. Department of State exchange program, administered by FSU’s Learning Systems Institute in a partnership with Santa Fe College.

“Higher Education is a wonderful tool of international diplomacy,” Thrasher told the 20 highereducation administrators, “and we’ve been proud to be part of this State Department effort.”

The program offers international educators an intensive study of U.S. community colleges, using Florida’s colleges as a model. This week the higher-education administrators started an overview that includes conversations with Florida Legislature leaders and senior policy-makers with the Florida community college system.

“Our goals with the Community College Administrator Program include exploring aspects of the U.S. higher education system, the complexities of community college administration and the challenges of day-to-day administration,” said Jeffrey Ayala Milligan, Ph.D., director of the Learning Systems Institute. “We will also encourage ongoing collaboration between Egypt and the United States on issues involved in access to higher education.”

Later, the Egyptian educators will continue their study at Santa Fe College, with a five-week seminar on key elements of community college leadership.

Milligan noted that the Learning Systems Institute would continue the Community College Administrator Program with four additional nations. Educators from Pakistan will come to FSU through the State Department exchange program later this year, with groups from other nations to follow.

“We continue to support this model because we believe it is an effective means for us to showcase the U.S. community college system…,” said Anthony Koliha, director of the Office of Global Educational Programs in the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. “We believe the community college system is a robust segment of U.S. higher education and that it provides great solutions for expanding access to higher education, for providing vocational and technical training, for providing lifelong training and retraining opportunities and for engaging in workforce development.”

Koliha said the State Department does not expect Egypt or any other nation to replicate the U.S. system, but “we hope that in part this model will give you an understanding of things you might take back to Egypt.”

Vilma Fuentes, Ph.D., assistant vice president for academic affairs at Santa Fe College, said the program provided opportunities for Santa Fe students and faculty to connect with others from around the world, to explore shared interests and to discover common ground in the field of education.

“The Community College Administrator Program is an educational and cultural exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State that allows regular Americans to engage in citizen-to-citizen diplomacy, showcase American culture and values, and extend a hand of friendship to people from other parts of the world,” Fuentes said. “It is the most personally and professionally rewarding program I have been involved in.”

Learn more about the Community College Administrator Program at https://lsi.fsu.edu/ccap/.

Educators from Egypt come to FSU to study how Florida provides access to higher education

Posted on March 31, 2017

Florida State University welcomes to campus 20 higher-education leaders from Egypt, who arrive this weekend to begin six weeks of study under the Community College Administrator Program, a U.S. Department of State exchange program.

Administered by FSU’s Learning Systems Institute, working with Santa Fe College in Gainesville, the program offers international educators an intensive study of Florida’s community college system and how it provides access to college study and university degrees.

Learn more about the program at https://lsi.fsu.edu/ccap/.

US-Indonesia Teacher Training Partnership (TTIP) Project

FUNDING Agency: USAID/RTI International PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Helen Boyle with Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi and Stephanie Zuilkowski AWARD AMOUNT: $500,000

The US-Indonesia Teacher Training Partnership (TTIP) was a 2.5-year project to enhance the quality and effectiveness of pre-service teacher training in the area of early grade reading.

The US-Indonesia Teacher Training Institute Partnership included a set of activities implemented under the overall USAID PRIORITAS Project, a five-year project implemented by RTI International designed to improve access to quality education for children in Indonesia.

Under TTIP, FSU and Semarang State University worked together to:

• Conduct a needs assessment of Semarang State’s Teacher Education Program. • Review and revise course offerings. • Train Semarang State instructors. • Develop a joint SSU/FSU research agenda relative to the teaching and learning of early grade reading. • Conduct a thorough program evaluation at the end of the project.

Landscape Report on Early Grade Reading

FUNDING AGENCY: USAID/University Research Center PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Helen Boyle AWARD AMOUNT: $146,832

LSI was contracted by the University Research Center to develop a Landscape Report on Early Grade Reading for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s “All Children Reading” Community of Practice.

This landscape report is critically important to educators, Ministries of Education and development professionals worldwide as it informs their efforts to improve the teaching and learning of reading and writing in the early grades in a way that is evidencebased, concrete and accessible to non-experts.

Evidence demonstrates that education has a positive effect on children and families’ future earning potential and health (Hanushek, & Woesmann, 2012; LeVine et al., 2012). Literacy — ability to read and write — is one of the core skills related to these positive educational outcomes. The fact that so many children worldwide do not learn to read and write in school effectively limits their horizons, particularly when it comes to accessing further education, health, employment/economic opportunities, and social mobility. Learning in content areas (e.g., science, social studies, and even math) requires reading and writing in the majority of educational settings.

Studies have consistently shown that literacy skills are related to children’s learning outcomes, not just in reading, but also math, and other subjects. Early struggle in learning to read and write is associated with high school dropout rates (Alexander, Entwisle, & Horsey, 1997; Jimerson, Egeland, Sroufe, & Carlson, 2000; Marteleto, Lam, & Ranchhod, 2008).

Finally, literacy supports the ability to think, understand, and apply content area information (Heller & Greenleaf, 2007; Lee & Spratley, 2010; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). Because literacy skills are critical, there is a growing need for accurate information about how to positively impact literacy acquisition.

Many countries continue to employ approaches to the teaching and learning of reading that have been shown to be ineffective (Boyle, Ajjawi, & Xiang, 2014; Brombacher, Collins, Cummiskey, Kochetkova, & Mulcahy-Dunn, 2012). Educational decision-makers worldwide need to be able to access information from the latest research in order to implement constructive and effective reforms to improve how literacy is taught and most importantly, how to improve literacy achievement levels in the current generation of early grade students.

The Landscape Report provides critical, reliable, and actionable information, in a succinct and accessible manner, to wide audience of education professionals worldwide.

**Children in nonformal education schools in Nigeria.**

Kim, Y.-S., Boyle, H., Zuilkowski, S. S., & Nakamura, P. R. (2016). Landscape Report on Early Grade Literacy. Washington, D.C.: USAID.

https://allchildrenreading.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/USAID-Landscape-Report-onEarly-Grade-Literacy.pdf

UNICEF-Pacific Technical Support in Designing an Early Grade Literacy Program for Tuvalu

FUNDING AGENCY: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF-Pacific) PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi AWARD AMOUNT: $34,559.86

The Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University received a grant from UNICEF-Pacific to conduct baseline research and design an “Early Grades Literacy Program for Tuvalu.”

The international research project was managed by the Center for International Studies in Educational Research and Development at the Learning Systems Institute. Drs. Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi and Marion Fesmire spent two weeks in Fiji and Tuvalu interviewing teachers and visiting schools in the smallest nation in the world. They designed several assessment tools, including the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) that was adapted and translated to Tuvaluan with assistance from the Ministry of Education Youth and Sports (MEYS) in Tuvalu and with the support from UNICEF-Pacific in Suva, Fiji.

The LSI team used the information gathered in Tuvalu to design the Three-Year Early Grades Literacy Program for Tuvalu, and produce a final report for UNICEF-Pacific.

**School children enjoying a break from the cyclone powerful winds in Tuvalu.**

Decentralized Basic Education, Component 2 USAIDIndonesia

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Jeffrey Ayala Milligan w/ Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi FUNDING: USAID-Indonesia/Educational Development Center CONTRACT NO. 14-5132 AWARD AMOUNT: $1.77 million (Phase 1: 2006-2009) & $314,873 (Phase 2: 2010-2012)

Florida State University was a partner to Education Development Center implementing Indonesian Decentralized Basic Education Project, Component 2 (20102011) funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID-Indonesia). The Learning Systems Institute provided technical assistance to DBE2, including designing and delivering an Action Research Training for university lecturers from twenty universities in Indonesia; and producing the “Action Research in Education Training Module for Indonesian University Lecturers” (250 pages) published by USAID-Indonesia (2011) in English and in Bahasa Indonesia.

DBE2 was a five-year $60 million project, funded by USAID with the purpose improving teacher education in Indonesia. As part of the technical assistance effort, LSI assisted local universities to improve the research capacity and quality of instruction, and to build the capability of key teacher education institutions by strengthening and expanding the organizational capacity for service delivery of lead universities and disseminating and promoting good practices in higher education, research and development. LSI put forward the expertise of associate faculty in the program in Sociocultural and International Development Education Studies, a graduate-level program at the College of Education focused on the preparation of scholars and activists committed to educational research and development in the developing world, to provide training and research opportunities for international scholars and to conduct exchanges with Indonesian universities. In 2007 LSI’s Center for International Studies in Educational Research and Development (CISERD) hosted an exchange visit of 13 Indonesian faculty and administrators from seven Indonesian universities, as well as representatives of the Indonesian Ministry of Education and the Indonesian Embassy in Washington, DC.

FSU faculty and LSI/CISERD associates collaborated on exchange activities and implemented workshops for faculty development at partner universities in Indonesia, including the following: Institut Agama Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry, Banda Aceh, Aceh; Institut Agama Islam Negeri Sumatera Utara, Medan, North Sumatra; Institut Agama Islam Negeri Walisongo (IAIN), Central Java; Satya Wacana Christian University Salatiga (UKSW), Central Java; Syiah Kuala University (UNSYIAH), Banda Aceh, Aceh; Universitas Kanjuruhan Malang, East Java; Universitas Muhammadiyah Makassar (UNISMUH), South Sulawesi; Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, East Java; Universitas Muhammadiyah, Banda Aceh, Aceh; Universitas Negeri Makassar (UNM), South Sulawesi; Universitas Negeri Malang (UM), East Java; Universitas Negeri Medan (UNIMED), Medan, North Sumatra; Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES), Central Java; Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA), East Java; Universitas Negeri Surakarta (UNS), Central Java; Universitas Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa (UNTIRTA), Serang, Banten; Universitas Terbuka (Open University of Indonesia), Jakarta.

**Indonesian girl at a local market in South Sulawesi, Indonesia**

**Faculty members from Islamic universities in Indonesia participate in "Action Research" workshops imparted by FSU faculty Drs. King Beach and Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi. Semarang, Indonesia 2010.**

This article is from:

The Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University

by Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi

CAPABILITY STATEMENT

Landscape Report on Early Grad...

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY

LINKS TO FSU-LSI VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE

LSI 50th Anniversary Video

Discover how the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) has worked to improve learning and performance for 50 years (1969-2019) at Florida State University, in Florida, nationally, and internationally.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Northern Nigeria Education Initiative Plus (NEI+)

Nigerian Center for Reading Research at Bayero University Kano, Nigeria

Addressing Post Conflict Activities to Counter Violent Extremism in Borno State, Nigeria

National Reading Program Implementation and Expansion

UNICEF: Reading and Numeracy Activity (RANA) in Borno and Yobe States, Nigeria

Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ TA) Project (2012-2018)

Educational Attainment for Young Mothers in Zambia: Disconnects Between Policy and Practice

OTHER PAST PROJECTS IN AFRICA:

ASIA & PACIFIC

Science, Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (STIP) in Higher Education Annual Program Statement - Uzbekistan Excellence in Education Reform (UEEP).

Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines (ABC+) (2019-2022)

Science, Technology, Research, and Innovation for Development (STRIDE) Program

US-Indonesia Teacher Training Institute Partnership (2014-2017)

UNICEF-Pacific: Early Grades Literacy Program for Tuvalu

Prioritizing Reform, Innovation, And Opportunities for Reaching Indonesia’s Teachers, Administrators, and Students (PRIORITAS)

Decentralized Basic Education 2- USAID-Indonesia

OTHER PAST PROJECTS IN ASIA:

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Honduras Reading Activity (De Lectores Líderes/Readers to Leaders)

OTHER PAST PROJECTS IN LAC:

THE MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA

Higher Education Capacity Development (HECD) Program in Lebanon

Arab Barometer Report on Nonformal Education in the MENA Region

OTHER PAST PROJECTS IN MENA:

GLOBAL REACH

Community College Administrator Program (CCAP) U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs

Advancing Basic Education: All Children Reading (ABE: ACR)

Advancing Basic Education: Access for All (ABE: ACCESS)

OTHER PAST PROJECTS WORLDWIDE:

LSI has managed projects in the following 36 countries:

RECENT INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

Transforming Teacher Education in Zambia

Science, Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (STIP) in Higher Education Annual Program Statement - Uzbekistan Excellence for Education Program (UEEP)

Higher Education Capacity Development (HECD) Program in Lebanon

Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines (ABC+) (2019-2022)

Addressing Post Conflict Activities to Counter Violent Extremism in Borno State, Nigeria

National Reading Program Implementation and Expansion

Northern Nigeria Education Initiative Plus (NEI+)

Nigerian Center for Reading Research at Bayero University Kano, Nigeria

UNICEF: Reading and Numeracy Activity (RANA) in Borno and Yobe States, Nigeria

Science, Technology, Research, and Innovation for Development (STRIDE) Program

Honduras Reading Activity (De Lectores a Líderes/Readers to Leaders)

Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed Technical Assistance (READ –TA)

US-Indonesia Teacher Training Partnership (TTIP) Project

Technical Support in Designing an Early Grade Literacy Program for Tuvalu

Decentralized Basic Education, Component 2, Indonesia

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADMINISTRATOR PROGRAM (CCAP)

FY17 Community College Administrator Program (Pakistan x 4)

FY17 Community College Administrator Program (Ukraine + Other)

FY18 Community College Administrator Program (Pakistan)

FY18 Community College Administrator Program (Western Hemisphere)

SELECTED RECENT US-BASED PROJECTS

Improvement of Elementary Fractions Instruction: RCT of Lesson Study with Fractions Resource Kit and Local Curriculum

Peace Corps Professional Campus Recruitment Services

Florida Inclusion Network, Administration

CPALMS and Student Tutorials

CPALMS: Alliance for Arts Education

Examining Teacher Math Anxiety as a Malleable Factor Related to Student Outcomes

Evaluation of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program

Follow-up to the Replicating the CGI Experiment in Diverse Environments Study

Foundations for Success: Developing Effective Mathematics Educators through Cognitively Guided Instruction

DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

Transforming Teacher Education in Zambia

FSU Press Release:

USAID-Florida State University partnership set to boost teacher training systems in Zambia

BY: BILL WELLOCK | PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 15, 2020

USAID Collaboration with Nigeria’s Bayero University in Kano Strengthens Early Grade Reading in Nigeria

The Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year!

Florida State researchers improve teacher training and childhood literacy in Nigeria

TEACHER TRAINING

A NEW CURRICULUM

The Nigeria Center for Reading and Development at BUK held a national reading conference in Kano, Nigeria