Spotlight 4 Success
We're shining a light on education success stories and talking about current trends and topics of importance to the education community. Join us in conversation!
Spotlight 4 Success
Fresh Ideas for Better Test Scores
Huebener's remarkable journey from music business executive to minister to innovative educator provides a fascinating backdrop for his educational philosophy. "A lot of effective teaching is diverse methodology," he explains, detailing how his classroom innovations like "Fly Swatter Review" and "Beach Ball Review" turn mundane study sessions into memorable learning experiences. These aren't just games—they're strategic teaching tools that remove the shame from the learning process while boosting retention and understanding.
Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company. I'm Devin Pintosi, your host. We are here at the Tennessee Council of Social Studies in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We're here with David Huebner, our special guest. David, I understand that you are the exhibits manager with TCSS. Is that right? Right, I've been doing that about 12 years Wonderful, and tell me a bit about what you're hoping to see in the programming here at TCSS and as far as between the content, the exhibits and all of that this year.
Speaker 2:Okay, what we're trying to do here. We're real proud of this event because we get a lot of vendors. We have dozens of presentations and workshops. They begin today at 1 o'clock and then continue all day tomorrow, but the whole point is a lot of diverse topics, a lot of topics that are current, that engage people. They're very, they keep up with the laws, they keep up with the trends, so it's new and energetic, and what we love about it is we try to interplay that with our vendors, that they pick up on that energy. And yet the registrants then pick up on the energy that the vendors have in coming to an event like this and they will consider new options, new resources, take them back to their school, their school system, and say, hey, we need to try this. This is a great idea. This is where a lot of changes have happened in education. This is like a breeding ground for innovation, different ideas, unique kind of ideas, things that are different and challenging and aren't stuck in the same old way.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful, and can you tell us a bit about your educational journey, your education career Right?
Speaker 2:I actually went to the University of Texas the other UT, if you're a Tennessean and got a degree in geography and then proceeded not to use it, went into the music business, retail and wholesale for over a dozen years, managed a huge record store in Houston, texas and hired mostly teenagers, so I got a real feel for students In the early 80s. It was a big change in my life and I got called into ministry and so I went to seminary, applied a lot of what I learned in the music business as far as being not trying to be hip but just trying to be current and help people in real language rather than churchy kind of language.
Speaker 1:So when I went, to seminary.
Speaker 2:I was about 10 years older than most people there and when they went there, a lot of people that were younger than me was like. Their whole claim was they were going to save the whole world, and that's noble. But I knew it's a little more difficult than that and people were looking for fresh ways to approach the gospel something different, unique ways, rather than just read this Bible verse. And so I really got heavily into the education world. I became a minister of education, came up with innovative ideas and in the mid-80s the denominational arm out of Nashville, lifeway Christian Resources, got wind of some of some innovations. We were doing family and marriage ministries, so we moved to Nashville because they wanted me to put them in use, ended up directing a program called the Festivals of Marriage.
Speaker 2:When I left five years later it was 33 events and I left not through anything but just sheer exhaustion Five years of travel. I've seen my kids and we grew really fast, but it was a great need. We saw thousands of couples. So I applied those same principles diverse forms of education through the forms of methodology. I did some other churches and then in 2002, my wife and I planted a church outside of Houston.
Speaker 3:Sugar Land.
Speaker 2:Texas and we disbanded after four years. It wasn't making it like we thought, but in the meantime I was doing bivocational, so I started to substitute teach and I thought you know, I've always wanted to teach, here's the opportunity I've been looking for, but it's not here. So the Lord was calling us back to Tennessee. So then I went to Belmont, got a Master of Arts in Teaching. So I'm sitting on a Master of Religious Education, master of Arts in Teaching and I put all those to work in four total careers. And my approach to teaching is a lot of variety and not just handing kids a worksheet. So that was a lot of why and not just handing kids a workshop. So that was a lot of why I started coming to events like this. Oh, maybe 17, 18 years ago. Go to conferences, start going to Tennessee Conference of Social Studies, get new ideas, meet other people. Then they asked me to become on the board and then I started to do the events. So I've tried to mix that up here and have a variety of people. And to me, a lot of effective teaching is diverse methodology. You don't want a textbook where you have the kids just read it. They memorize, memorize definitions, and then here's a worksheet do this and that's the last thing you do.
Speaker 2:So when I went to Belmont, I pretty much majored in what's called methodology to come up with different ways to teach kids. So some of those forms have to do with different reviews. I'll give an example. Kids are bored with let's say it was a general question name three presidents around the time of the Civil War. So I thought let's let them study the materials and see, but let's let them learn during reviews. Any effective curriculum should have reviews in it that are actually teaching them too. Wow, okay. So for me it was things like you know, asking them in a review, things that were game-oriented. So one of the games I did was fly swatter review. Okay. So what I do, devin, is I would get there early morning, right, have two different boards, a split in the middle, and I would put actually, yeah, two, and I would put what school was this you're?
Speaker 3:this was.
Speaker 2:I started this at Spring Hill High School spring then I went to Ravenwood in Brentwood.
Speaker 3:At American Book Company in Woodstock, georgia, we are committed to your students' success. As you can see behind me, we have our workbooks and we have online testing and e-books that go on fancy iPads over here, for instance. They're all designed to help your students succeed and have higher test scores on their high-stakes assessments. To help your students succeed and have higher test scores on their high-stakes assessments, give us a call 888-264-5877, or find us on the web, abck12.com, and you can receive a free trial or a free preview book of your choice. Hope to hear from you soon. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2:You actually had three students go, so it was three sections the exact same words. The reason why I had to review is you have three people up there and you ask the question and they have to find the answer on it. Now, some of that has to do with personality or their ability to locate something. So I tried to make it even kind of students and then if it was a tie, I'd say decision of the judges, me, me, myself and I are final, and so that's what we did and the kids learned from that and they did it over Even kids that didn't like it at first. They got involved because, see, there's no shame, it's just fun learning. We did another one called Beach Ball Review too, where you toss a beach ball around. Whoever gets that ball choosing your best friend, you get to ask them a question. Or whoever gets that ball choosing your best friend, you get to ask them a question. They have to answer. If they can't, it goes to somebody else. There's no shame, but kids, especially guys, love the Smash, the Beach ball.
Speaker 2:So I look for innovation reviews to incorporate, not just as here, let's just review and let's have a dry review or fill out this worksheet, but anything that was innovative. And what I find with companies like ABC, a book company, is innovative ideas, fresh writing and an ability to work with the newest trends. Find out what's going on. So if I went in to interview them, they would say, well, we just found out about Common Core. Well, that's 10, 12 years ago. In Common Core, we moved on to other things RTI and things like that other trends in education that are happening and their books are filled with a lot of diversity, effective instructional materials and so forth. We have a lot of vendors like that. Some are on the, and Devin may remember this when he really and the people in his family started the company, where it was on a younger end and where they were starting. Some of these are young companies that are starting where ABC did and some will make it, some won't.
Speaker 2:But if you have fresh innovation and you're committed to your product and you relate to the people, abide by the state standards, get the content out, make it fresh and refresh it every few years. Make sure it's currently, contemporary, yes, and make sure you don't avoid subjects that are delicate. Okay, you Get the content out, make it fresh and refresh it every few years, make sure it's current and contemporary and make sure you don't avoid subjects that are delicate. You don't have to get into controversies, but you want to talk about who really did start World War I, who really did start World War II. What was communism, what were Nazism? Is a person in America today is a socialist the same as a communist? They're not. So those kind of books, that kind of curriculum material, instructional material, can help you see the differences in those kind of things. So that's why I approach social studies and that's why even now, as a retired teacher, I've stayed highly involved in the Tennessee Council for Social Studies and our state conference as well.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. And did you find with the ABC books, American Burgundy books, that the scores improved with the classrooms over time?
Speaker 2:Well, the people that I know used them. Okay, that became the case. My county didn't adopt them when I was working there, but who says they won't in the future? So, yes, people used them. There's been a lot of success with that. Quite truthfully, I was one of those that came into the field with groups that weren't super international conglomerates. There are a lot of massive public, even in our event here today. There's a lot of publishers that are incredible. They've been around for decades. They do an incredibly good job. They have great text, but sometimes some of the more innovative ideas because they're not so bureaucratic is a smaller company that comes on that becomes bigger, can do things in-house or farm it out, but they come up with new ideas. They're willing to look at new ideas because it's not well, we just got to beat the big guys. It's like, well, we have an idea that's different than one of these publishers. I won't mention names because I don't want anybody to feel bad.
Speaker 3:They're all good.
Speaker 2:I've used them all, and I've been on adoption committees and used the textbooks and all that. But when you come with fresh, innovative ideas, that eventually bubbles to those other publishers and they see we've got some catching up to do. So this is why I love companies like ABC. That will come along, they come with great ideas and new ideas and they're going directly to states. Here's something we can do. And oh, you don't have a book in World Geography. We can tailor that towards your state. We can write it. Take the curriculum, shape it. Oh, your standards have changed. Okay, we need the latest ones. Oh, you're working on new ones. Well, we need to know that before we can proceed. And that's where we need to be responsive. So you're not lethargic, you're not stuck in 10 middle managers. You can move quickly and change things and that's one of the beauty You're a little more nimble on your feet. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:We work really hard to make sure we stay current and we print on demand, in addition to having the online testing the e-books demand, in addition to having the online testing the e-books, and I think all of that helps to make sure that they maintain a current overview of whatever the standards are, and I like the fact too, devin that the product a lot of the negativity with just a typical textbook.
Speaker 2:It's hardback. There's no flexibility, you can't fold it, you can't bend it. Your books end up being workbooks too, and so people they can treat them like paperback. They get beat up, bent around. It's no big deal because it's used. It becomes a student workbook and a textbook at the same time. So it's very good to use it that way, and that adds a freshness to it. Besides, newsprint smells pretty good.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. That's great. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the TCSS community about things, maybe things that are going to happen next year?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, first of all, back with methodology. Look for things that are different. Look for things that are. You can find them at the strangest places. Maybe you're a church member, maybe you're not. Maybe you go to a conference. Maybe you go to a conference, maybe you go to a concert and you see things that are different. Look for those ideas and try to put them to work in your classroom. For example, there was a show on I don't even know what it was on 10, 15 years ago, called Cash Cab. Do you remember that? We actually did that at a school where we built a cardboard cash cab and the kids had to answer. They would get play money, but they would get money. Well, the kids knew what it AND THE KIDS HAD TO ANSWER. They WOULD GET PLAY MONEY, but THEY WOULD GET MONEY. Well, the KIDS KNEW WHAT IT WAS. So THAT SHOW DIDN'T LAST VERY LONG, but IT GOT THE IDEA. You MIGHT LOOK AT A SHOW THAT like in Practical Jokers, but make it a little bit, not so controversial. I don't know if you've seen that show.
Speaker 1:No, I have not.
Speaker 2:Okay, they play practical jokes on people, but it becomes a little strange. What if you came up with a methodology to do that in your own classroom, came up with a way to teach students have fun? Kids like humor. They remember better with humor and laughter, and so try to build that into it. Don't be so stoic and quiet that you think it's got to be order and order. Don't just give them an assignment on your cell phone or on a laptop that they have to do. And come up with something that's fresh and different. Interact with them. Take them on field trips. Some schools don't do that anymore. Try to interact with them and get them on field trips. That's wonderful. So next year we'll be in Memphis at TCSS oh okay. And then the year after we'll be in Middle Tennessee, in Franklin, here just below Nashville oh okay.
Speaker 2:Wonderful we typically don't have a theme every year. We just go with it and try to everything from I don't know that I've ever had kindergarten teachers here, but from I don't know that I've ever had kindergarten teachers here, but we basically are one through 12. We do have some administrators and we also have some universities who will come. Private schools too. A few years ago we had a group of eight or nine nuns that came from a Catholic school. So this is open to homeschoolers, private schools and public schools. We're not going to discriminate that, and you may find materials that are good for all of them.
Speaker 1:Oh, that is wonderful, david, and it's such a great thing, you know, just looking around here at these exhibits and then seeing the programming for this conference is really top notch.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of excitement here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sure is. It sure is. It's really good. David, thank you so much for being on the program. David Huebner, the exhibits coordinator for Tennessee Council of Social Studies, thank you very much. Thank you, devin Appreciate the opportunity, thanks.