The Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University has received a Supporting Holistic and Actionable Research in Education (SHARE) grant to support its Strengthening Teacher Education and Practice activity in Malawi.
SHARE is a cooperative agreement funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Bureau for Inclusive Growth, Partnerships, and Innovation and Center for Education and distributed by the University of Notre Dame. These highly competitive grants aim to advance global education learning priorities to improve learning outcomes.
The Strengthening Teacher Education and Practice, or STEP, activity in Malawi works with higher education institutions to improve instruction for pre-service teachers and provide a pathway of continuous professional development for early-grade teachers. It supports teachers throughout their careers.
SHARE grants are provided to programs already operating at scale. Adrienne Barnes-Story, a research faculty member and literacy and pedagogy specialist at the Learning Systems Insititute (LSI), is the principal investigator on the project. Brenda Wawire, a research faculty member at LSI, will serve as the co-principal investigator.
The SHARE Grant will be focused on piloting an electronic Continuous Professional Development (e-CPD) program with teacher educators across Malawi. The LSI team is repackaging professional development content from the STEP activity, which will be programmed into an online platform (Moodle) and tested in spring 2025.
"This is an exciting opportunity for the Malawian education system to take a leap forward," Barnes-Story said. "LSI will support the Ministry of Education to develop, design and pilot the first e-CPD course in the country. We anticipate a great learning experience for everyone, participants and researchers alike."
The STEP Malawi team will design and implement a study to test the viability of using a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) with 150 teacher educators across 22 sites to disseminate selected CPD materials. LSI will lead the quantitative side of the study and the MOOC programming, while STEP Malawi partner School-to-School International (STS) will facilitate the in-person workshop and lead the qualitative research design and analysis.
LSI and STS will triangulate findings between the quantitative and qualitative data and develop actionable recommendations for using this information in future course development and CPD implementation under STEP.
For 55 years, LSI has delivered systems that measurably improve the learning and performance of organizations and individuals in Florida and globally. The institute's advanced research provides state-of-the-art methods and a clear path for implementation. To learn more about LSI, visit lsi.fsu.edu.
