Texas School District Focuses on Teacher Skills

Sep 17, 2008 12:00 PM, By Linda Seid Frembes

Learning@Lovejoy

This past summer marked the second annual "Learning@Lovejoy" professional-development conference at LISD. The school district produced the three-week long conference in conjunction with Phoenix-based Troxell Communications and various other sponsors. Operating under the motto "they are all our kids," the conference is open to educators from Texas and across the United States. "We do invite any and all teachers to join us; the seminars are focused on good teaching practices," Womack says. "The goal is to hone a teacher's skills; it is not a sit-and-get."

Most sessions at the conference cost $75 per day—which includes materials, lunch, and break snacks. According to the website, the conference is open to the education community because "professional educators need to collaborate and support each other for the benefit of every child."

In conjunction with the new StarBoards, Hitachi education consultants provided five days of instruction at the conference, which was an increase from three days due to overwhelming response. "I appreciated the training because it was more about how to use the whiteboard with today's generation for the best impact," Womack says. "Although they were clearly using Hitachi products and feature sets, the best part about the training is that it could be about any whiteboard; it was more about how to modify a subject matter and integrate the use of the board. Any teacher could walk away knowing how to integrate it into their classes."