SOUTH POINT — A summer academy was recently sponsored by the Lawrence County Educational Service Center at South Point Middle School, where from June 1-4 and June 8-11, 130 teachers from Lawrence County and surrounding areas gained skills, knowledge and insight to better teaching practices.

“We provide this service for Lawrence County teachers and principals and this year we opened it up to surrounding counties,” Betsy Fannin, Lawrence County Educational Service Center curriculum supervisor, said. “It helps teachers renew their teaching licenses by giving them contact hours and it gives them a chance to share the best teaching practices.”

This year, the academy was called “Don’t Stop Believing,” and featured numerous different workshop sessions on a variety of topics including Assessment Literacy, Let’s Enjoy Teaching Again, Adolescent Literature, Preparing K-12 Teachers for Using Online Assessments and Current Resources, Literacy Design Collaborative, Math Design Collaborative, Teaching Strategies That Work, Differentiation in the Classroom through Gamification, Formative Instructional Practices, Writing in all Subjects 5-12, Reading and Writing for Successful Results, Strategies to Improve Student Performance, Technology in the Classroom, Enriching Strategies for students, Strategies for Struggling Learners, History Alive, Inclusion Strategies that Work, The Best Teachers in You and Continue Professional Development Online. Each session also paralleled a state sponsored conference.

“We had teachers from grades K-12 in all subjects,” Fannin said.

As an alternative to gaining contact hours, Fannin said those that left each workshop had the option to purchase college credit hours from Shawnee State University at a very competitive rate instead.

South Point Schools shared its facilities and Shawnee State University provided for presenters and college credit, Fannin said.