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BILOXI, Miss. (AP) — Hundreds of Mississippi educators gathered at a conference in Biloxi featuring roughly 75 sessions focused on teaching strategies, learning theories and ways to integrate technology in the classroom.
"The goal is to build teachers' capacities and to improve literacy across the state," Sherry Shepard, conference chair of the Mississippi Reading Association, said about this week's event.
Recent rounds of testing, including Common Core standards, have led schools in the state to place more emphasis on reading at all grade levels and improving students' reading abilities, The Sun Herald (http://bit.ly/1QeIZOC) reported. The "third-grade reading gate" — the requirement that third-graders pass a reading test to be promoted to fourth grade — along with new Common Core standards are tangible measures.
The association has been holding the conference for 45 years. Some 575 educators attended this year's event, which is an increase of about 100 from last year.
Ideally, teachers can take what they've learned and immediately use it in their classrooms, Shepard said.
Sandra Jarrett and Cid Butler, both teachers from Madison Middle School, hosted a session on leading a Socratic seminar in the classroom.
Both, who had attended the conference for three years, said they had also learned a lot from other sessions, including how to get classes engaged.
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Information from: The Sun Herald, http://www.sunherald.com
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