The creativity and expertise of UFT Teacher Center instructors were on full display at the five professional development workshops offered at the Spring Education Conference. This year’s New York City theme inspired the instructors to infuse the workshops with the city’s culture and history.

Educators signed up for one or two hourlong sessions, each providing CTLE credits, to improve their teaching practice.

In a writing workshop called “Stories in the Skyline,” a social studies workshop called “NYC Uncovered: Bringing History to Life in the Classroom” and a poetry workshop called “Bodegas to Broadway,” participants were shown how to incorporate city institutions, landmarks and traditions into their lessons to increase student engagement.

Teacher and Chapter Leader Ronald Micca of the HS for Arts and Business in Queens and pre-K teacher Stefon Pflum of the District 29 Pre-K Center in Queens may be worlds apart in terms of grade level, but they were of one accord when it came to the most valauble takeaway from the social studies workshop: getting students to include qualifiers in their expressions of ideas. Teacher Center coaches advised educators to encourage students to use “because, but, so” in presenting their points of view.

“Even with small children, we really want them to provide some type of basis for what they’re thinking,” Pflum said.

Ann Rodriguez, a kindergarten teacher at PS 179 in the Bronx, said she plans to use the “blackout” poetry strategy she learned — in which students black out certain words in a text to create a poem from the remaining words — with her English language learners.

“We’re going to have fun,” she said cheerfully.