FARMINGTON — How educators help all students learn and be successful in today’s increasingly diverse classrooms with students of different cultures, languages and abilities will be the focus of the fifth annual Teaching and Working in a Diverse World conference, “Helping ALL Students Learn,” presented by the University of Maine at Farmington. Free and open-to-the-public half-day conference is planned for 11:50 a.m.-4 p.m., Friday, Oct. 19, at selected venues on the UMF campus.

According to a press release, the educational forum begins with “The Center of the World,” a keynote presentation by writer Terry Farish at 11:50 a.m., in Lincoln Auditorium, UMF Roberts Learning Center. With passages from “The Good Braider”– her new young-adult novel set in South Sudan and Portland — Farish describes one refugee family’s relationship to education and the beginning of one girl’s journey to find her new identity in the United States.

An afternoon of lectures, discussions, instructional strategies, story-telling and activities presented by faculty and professionals in the field will follow the keynote. Presentations will include: “Behavior and Diversity in the Classroom;” “Language, Culture and the Changing Face of Maine;” “How Does Customized Learning Help All Students Learn” and more.

For more information, call 778-7177.