Interested in presenting a workshop?

Every October, educators, students and members of the public look forward to the education event of the year – the Education Minnesota Professional Conference in downtown St. Paul. We invite you to share your expertise and ideas related to our conference theme of community outreach, involvement and support for students. Our featured speaker will be Donna Brazile, national columnist, television commentator and political strategist who grew up in poverty and rose to become the first African American woman to manage a presidential campaign (Al Gore in 1999).

Delivering high-quality, professionally interesting education topics remains our focus on Thursday and builds a foundation for Friday. Classroom strategies, research on new teaching methods and success stories will round out the types of proposals we hope to receive. On Friday, we will again offer our very popular sessions that enable teachers to satisfy some of the specific state requirements for license renewal.

In particular, we invite you to share your knowledge and expertise in the following areas with our members and the general audience interested in education:

• Developing collaborative relationships with parents, families and communities.
• Improving classroom management strategies.
• Broadening the knowledge base for all educators.
• Engaging student learning through arts education.
• Presenting new professional development initiatives that enhance teacher learning, improve student achievement and show promise for closing the achievement gap.
• Assisting educators who seek to bring “wellness” into their professional practice.

Our audiences often ask for interactive presentations, materials and resources for future reference, and effective, hands-on classroom strategies. Content-specific and pedagogical topics in demand include teaching English language learners, differentiating instruction for diverse learners, mathematics at all levels, music and the entire field of social studies. We also hope to highlight interdisciplinary avenues to quality teaching and learning that meet the needs of today’s students.

We invite you to submit a proposal to present a one-hour workshop for Thursday, Oct. 20, or Friday, Oct. 21, by completing the following:

1. Write a description of your workshop (100 words or less) on a separate sheet with your workshop title at the top. Please type or word-process, double space using 12-point type.
2. Copy and complete the data sheet on the reverse side of this invitation.
3. Send your description and completed data sheet postmarked by May 20, to:

Chris Carlin
Education Minnesota
41 Sherburne Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55103

The preferred mode of transmission is the U.S. mail. If you have questions, please contact Chris Carlin.

Notifications will be sent by June 24.

April 18, 2011