The Institute for Learning and Teaching (ILT) is a unit of the Graduate College of Education (GCE) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. ILT specializes in university, school, and community-based collaborations, with a particular emphasis on urban education and multicultural concerns. Throughout the state, the ILT works with teachers, administrators, students, and families to improve the teaching and learning of students at all levels. ILT conducts many direct-service programs for K-12 urban students, partners with individual schools, offers activities for UMass Boston students, and conducts professional development programs. Its primary purpose is to conduct programming that focuses on whole-school improvement, narrowing the Achievement Gap, and dropout prevention. The ILT accomplishes this by providing professional development programs statewide and direct-service programs for urban students. The ILT offers courses for UMass Boston students as well.

The ILT was founded in 1970 as an expression of the University's commitment to the public service mission of an explicitly urban campus. With the financial support of the Ford Foundation and under the leadership of a respected educator, Gregory Anrig, the Institute was created to focus on in-service education and to foster innovative approaches to educational change.

A unique and important feature of the Institute has been the collaborative model that underpins its programs. The Institute's approach emphasizes educational improvement through strong collaborations forged between academicians and practitioners. A real measure of the success of these collaborations is in the long-term impact of this work. The Institute has a well-established reputation for this type of success.

Annually, ILT programs reach teachers, administrators, parents, and students in more than 40 Massachusetts school systems. Major ILT program areas include:

ILT programs have been offered in many cities and towns throughout the state, with substantial involvement in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Quincy, Salem, Lawrence, Lowell, Fall River, and New Bedford. The Institute has a successful track record in fund- raising, regularly securing close to or over one million per year in grants from public and private funding sources, including corporations, businesses, foundations, and federal and state governments. Current supporters of ILT programs include the following: the Amelia Peabody Foundation, the Federal Government, Tomfohrde Foundation, the Boston Public Schools' Department of Language Learning and Support Services, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the Clipper Ship Foundation, the National Writing Project, the Calderon Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Liberty Mutual Foundation, and the Massachusetts Foundation for Humanities.