MARK WAITE / PVT Buffalo Grove, Ill., Superintendent Tom Many delivers a keynote address to Nye County School District educators during the Omni Conference at the Rosemary Clarke Middle School cafeteria. Advertisement

Some of Nye County's best teachers were urged to share their knowledge with other teachers in a collaborative team during the Omni Conference held last week.

The Professional Learning Community was one of the concepts taught during the week-long conference staged at Rosemary Clarke Middle School. School begins Monday.

"You don't change people's minds, you change people's practices, which change people's minds," Tom Many, a superintendent from Buffalo Grove, Ill., told about 90 attendees during the Monday morning keynote address. While Many was superintendent, his Kildeer Community School District was named one of the highest-achieving and lowest-spending elementary school districts in Illinois.

The Professional Learning Community takes a complicated concept and makes it manageable, he said.

"We've got to create time during the day for collaborative teams to do their work," Many said.

He adopted a takeoff on the mission statement for the Nye County School District, "Every child can learn.

"Every kid can learn to a high level. Every kid can be a success," he said. Some of them may turn out to be rocket scientists. "We don't know where they're going to be 20 years from now, 10 years from now."

The Tuesday morning keynote address was delivered by Nancy Weber, of Bay City, Mich., on "Differentiated Instruction Techniques." Weber is the co-author of "Teacher Talk: What It Really Means" and has delivered seminars to teachers since 1987.

The Wednesday keynote speech came from Tony Brewer, from San Antonio, Texas, on "Technology and Differentiated Instruction." Brewer is recognized as one of the world's leading K-16 technology writers, lecturers and trainers.

Jerry Hill, assistant superintendent for student achievement, said it was a first-class conference on active teaching and active learning. He said veteran teachers from throughout the 17 schools in the district were chosen to participate in the conference. They will then pass on their knowledge to other teachers through demonstration lessons.

The Omni Conference was funded by a $138,976 grant from the Senate Bill 404 program passed by the Nevada Legislature.

Besides concepts like getting teachers to work together in Professional Learning Communities to meet goals together, speakers talked about training teachers to tailor their classroom presentations to students at different levels of learning, including special education, regular education and English as a second language, Hill said.

A major part of the conference deals with using technology in the classroom. Hill said school district classrooms are equipped with computers, and trainees will learn various ways to use the computer in the classroom.

Pahrump Valley High School Spanish teacher Susan Warner said she learned about different strategies teachers could use in the classroom to make instruction more interesting to students.

"The teachers can get the students to do hands-on activities with other students, more group work, being involved in their own learning," Warner said.

Teachers were also told about looking at student assessments in more detail to see what they can do to help students achieve better.

It was one of two conferences the Nye County School District will sponsor this year. The district will train key teachers later this school year in the McRel program, using a $160,000 grant from the State Technology Commission. That program will show technical ways to promote active learning.