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Minnesota’s largest professional development event for educators is back this week with a continued emphasis on helping students with special needs and a new focus on encouraging aspiring teachers to get their first jobs and stay in the profession.
The union-sponsored Minnesota Educator Academy, or MEA, conference is Thursday and Friday, Oct. 20 and 21, at the Saint Paul RiverCentre. The event is from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday and 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday. The conference is free and open to the public.
“Educators across the state are looking for high-quality professional development that improves their practice, which ultimately benefits students,” said Education Minnesota President Denise Specht. “Our union is uniquely positioned to fill that need with training on topics educators say they want and need.”
The conference will continue to feature sessions on engaging students and keeping them in school, using technology in the classroom, social justice advocacy and more. Education Minnesota also added a job fair to MEA this year because districts are struggling to fill jobs because of the teacher shortage.
“We think the job fair will be a valuable addition for both the growing number of aspiring educators who attend the conference and school employers,” Specht said.
The teacher shortage has many causes, but low morale is frequently cited as one of them. Keynote speaker Dana Goldstein, author of “The Teacher Wars,” will put the criticism of the profession into historical perspective. She speaks at 11 a.m. Thursday in the Roy Wilkins Auditorium.
Dr. Anton Treuer, a prolific author and authority on the Ojibwe language and culture, will return to MEA to talk about how educators can reduce opportunity gaps by making their teaching more responsive to the cultures of their students. He speaks at 1 p.m. Thursday.
Other speakers include Nancy Riestenberg, an expert in restorative justice programs, and clinical psychologist Dr. Mark Sander, who will talk about how childhood traumas affect the lifelong health and wellbeing of students. Instructional coach Tina Boogren will talk about creating a highly engaged classroom.
There are also sessions on recruiting more teachers of color. Dr. Margarita Bianco from the University of Denver, along with one of her students who became a teacher, will discuss the topic at 9:50 a.m. and 1 p.m. Thursday.
There are more than 110 sessions over the two-day conference. Educators can also check out education-related products, services and programs in the General Motors-sponsored MEA exhibit hall on Thursday.
For more details on these and other workshops, visit the MEA section of the Education Minnesota website and click on the Thursday and Friday workshop sections.
Thousands of educators, support professionals, parents and others attend the MEA conference every year. Educators attend the conference on their own time. Previous education conventions or conferences in Minnesota, which were known by different names, date back to 1861.