It’s time to order your ticket for the UFT’s annual Spring Education Conference, which will take place at the New York Hilton in midtown Manhattan on Saturday, May 7. This signature event celebrates and stimulates our work as public school educators.

This year’s conference features in-demand workshops on active learning, integrated co-teaching and math by popular presenters.

See full descriptions of the workshops »

The Food Bank for New York City, which sponsors CookShop and works in close partnership with the UFT’s Community Learning Schools, will receive the Dewey Award, the UFT’s most prestigious award.

The event will begin with breakfast at 7:30 a.m. followed by a morning town hall, workshops, a large and varied exhibit hall and a gala luncheon, from 1 to 3 p.m.

Registration has been extended to April 27. There is a $50 registration fee.

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Jonathan Fickies

Participants can choose this year from among six workshops. Dr. Anita Archer, a well-known educator, will lead a two-hour session called Getting Them All Engaged: Inclusive Active Participation. Along with Dr. Charles Hughes, Dr. Archer is the author of “Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching.” Dr. Archer will be modeling evidence-based instructional procedures to help educators actively involve all their students — including verbal responses (choral, partner, team and individual), written responses (using slates, cards, technology and writing frames) and action responses (like acting out, gestures and hand signals). Participants will come away with knowledge of strategies they can apply immediately in their classrooms.

In another two-hour workshop — called ICT 2.0: Where’s the Specially Designed Instruction? — participants will learn instructional strategies specially tailored to integrated co-teaching classes. Dr. Marilyn Friend has studied and written extensively about co-teaching environments and is nationally recognized for her identification of the six models for co-teaching. She is the author of “Co-Teach!: A Handbook for Creating and Sustaining Classroom Partnerships in Inclusive Schools.”

Math Makes Everyone Count! is a two-hour workshop led by Dr. Robert Gyles, a professor of mathematics education at Hunter College. Gyles will teach hands-on ways to bridge the gap between concrete and abstract learning.

The one-hour workshops are equally relevant to New York City public school educators. In Building Oral Language through Academic Conversation with English Language Learners, participants will build a toolkit of strategies to support academic conversations between ELLs. A Digital Showcase: Student Learning on Display will introduce technology that can be used by students. In Mindfulness Meditation, participants will learn how to help their students relax and focus.

UFT members will receive two professional development hours for attending conference workshops. 

Participants also will have the opportunity to peruse the exhibit hall for information and handouts or watch demonstrations by the city’s career and technology education students.