Teachers from worldwide bases visit UNI

Some 200 teachers that educate the kids of military personnel worldwide just finished up with workshops at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls to hone their skills. U-N-I mathematics professor Catherine Miller says the majority of them teach elementary school, while the rest are middle school teachers. She says the workshops focused on math. She says it’s the 13th year they’ve done this and it’s a contract through the Department of Defense Education Agency. Miller says the workshops give the teachers some training they can’t get elsewhere. She says many of the teachers work in remote areas, or in schools on bases, so she says it’s not easy for them to participate in career development activities. Miller says worker with these teachers was a good experience. She says she finds these teachers more likely to take a risk in their classrooms, whereas more traditional groups of teachers seem to be more tentative. Miller says that could be because these teachers are already taking a challenge by teaching kids in bases across the world. The workshops wrapped up this past week.