IEA’s Living Library has been awarded a $300,000 federal grant that will allow the program to expand its reach and enhance its technological capacity.
The Living Library has established a website where teachers and retired teachers post lesson plans, teaching tips and other useful items to share with new teachers and college students studying education.
Now the program will be able to expand and will allow more teacher profiles, new professional development material, improved lesson-search functions, training students how to use the Living Library and more.
“The benefits to our members – students, active and retired – include a system to store teaching resources electronically to those building file cabinets and free access to best practice teaching resources to all members in one place that will be growing and expanding with the grant,” said Janet Kilgus, an IEA-Retired member and Living Library coordinator.
Kilgus said the Living Library applied for the grant after research showed that half of all K-12 teachers will reach retirement age in the next 10 years, creating a need for further professional development. Often, feeling as if they are left flailing with little support, many new teachers leave the field for other professionals.
The grant money first will go toward technology upgrades that will make it easier and faster for teaching professionals to place larger items such as photos, videos, power points and more into their online storage cabinets.
“Then funds will be used for activities with students at the college in using the resources of the Living Library to aid them in their preparation to become teachers and activities in select public schools to support new teachers,” Kilgus said.
Those schools have not yet been chosen.
The Illinois Institute of Independent Colleges and Universities, a not-for-profit higher education association serving 58 institutions, will partner with an Illinois private college to expand the reach and effectiveness of the Living Library across Illinois and, ultimately, across the country.
The as-yet-unselected college will develop “best practice” strategies for getting students and new teachers involved and then assessing how the program is going.
“We are happy to be working with other educational groups to use, test, promote, grow and improve the living library,” she said.
The IEA-Retired and Student Programs will make up half of the communications/planning team and all but one are active IEA members.
Planning is still ongoing and the official start date for grant activities is this fall.
“This grant is funding we’ve been trying to find to help us move forward with the (Living Library) project we started in 2005. NEA student members across the states have heard about (it) from our IEA student members and have been asking to be included. Now the future includes that possibility,” Kilgus said.
“IEA-Retired leaders, with the initial NEA-Retired funding, are proud to have started this program which is growing to become a resource to improving education in Illinois and eventually nationwide.”