VIDEO: Teachers Learn Better Ways To Engage With Students

WINONA, Miss. (WCBI)- Teacher’s in Winona’s Public School District are more prepared this week after a series of interactive conference sessions.

The goal is to better help teachers, help our students.

The school district is calling it “The Power of YOU” conference.

By giving teachers a choice as to what specific sessions they attend, supervisors are hoping students too will benefit.

This year teachers have a choice-

“Usually, when teachers come back for the first day the speakers are already picked for us. So this is really new, we get to choose ourselves, which sessions we would like to attend, therefore we get to choose what we’re going to bring back into our classroom,” says high school teacher Hattie Frank Maloney.

Which has two added benefits…

“It’s really wonderful that we have an opportunity for our teachers to choose sessions that pertain to their classes or their needs and then they get free CEU’s our continuing education units that go towards them renewing their licenses,” says Winona School District Director Dr. Angela Bridges.

Sessions like how to handle active shooter situations, helping students adjust to real world problems, and even more creative ones.

“We have classroom management sessions, we even have project based learning where teachers are making pieces of pottery so it’s really cool,” says Bridges.

The goal is to engage teachers so they can better engage with their students.

“Teachers have very little time to work in their classrooms and prepare before school starts but Winona has been very progressive to have an opportunity for teachers to choose what they can do in their classrooms right when they open their doors to students- it’s really a progressive idea,” says MSU Associate Professor Kay Broscato.

Teachers like Hattie Frank Maloney are excited about the potential these sessions have.

“We take what we learn in these sessions and apply them to our classrooms to build a healthy environment for our students, healthy culture to enrich them with their subject matter,” says Maloney.

Tomorrow is the last day of the 3 day conference & students start back August 9th.