What’s the BIG Idea? Training of Trainers

In 2005, the Vermont Center for the Book (VCB) received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop and implement a program called What's the BIG Idea? to help librarians change their children's story hours to include more mathematics and science content and vocabulary. The project resulted in the creation of a professional development seminar; a Librarian Manual with guidelines, activities and other information; parent kits for families to take home and use to reinforce and extend learning in math and science; and a website filled with ideas, bibliographies, and other information developed to support librarians and others as they implemented the program. Evaluation of the project showed that librarians changed their practices in statistically significant ways. The original cohort of librarians acquired specific knowledge and skills and confidence in their abilities to provide children with activities and vocabulary related to mathematics and science. They implemented the program with varying degrees of fidelity, and those with the strongest fidelity to the Librarian Manual had the strongest impacts on children. Because of the success, VCB sought additional funds from NSF to bring the project to scale. VCB recognized that its small staff could not possibly deliver the training to all of the librarians who requested it, so they developed a training-of-trainers approach wherein others could offer the training. This study was conducted to determine whether the training was effective when staff other than VCB provided the training.