Tebo honored by Farm Bureau as 'Teacher of the Year'

Greg Tebo, technology teacher at Maxey Elementary School, 5200 S. 75th St., is one of two teachers in the state honored by the Nebraska Farm Bureau as Teachers of the Year.

Nebraska Farm Bureau's Ag Promotion Committee and the Nebraska Agriculture in the Classroom Program selected the teachers based on their work to include teaching about agriculture in their classroom lessons.

Tebo participated in the 2011 Summer Soybean Science Institute funded by the Nebraska and American Soybean Associations. Teachers invest 90-plus hours learning how to use the soybean as a model to enhance existing school curriculum in science and other subjects, and teach students the inquiry approach to their own learning. The teachers then develop lesson plans for their students. 

He will be presented with an award plaque recognizing their achievement and will receive an all-expense-paid trip to the 2012 National Agriculture in the Classroom Conference, June 19-22, in Loveland, Colo.

We asked him a few questions about his teaching strategy:

1. First off, how have you tied together your role as technology teacher and agriculture?

Agriculture ties directly into elementary science curriculum areas in LPS. Kindergartners have used technology to draw and label parts of a plant in computer class. The first-graders have learned about the parts of soil and decomposers with web sites like Herman the Worm and The Dirt on Soil. Our fourth-graders built research projects in computer on Nebraska commodities like beef, pork, corn, soybeans, dairy and wheat that they later used as a part of their Agriculture Fair they had for parents and others.

2. What did you learn from your time at the Soybean Science Institute that you took back to the classrooms at Maxey?

From my first year in the institute I was able to learn more about the systems based approach to learning and how to use the soybean as a model for teaching in many different curriculum areas. I was able to use my 21 years of classroom experience to enhance my teaching in technology and infuse that model into other lessons for all grade levels.

3. How have you seen the inquiry approach to learning benefit your students?

When teaching science through inquiry processes, scientific literacy is not regarded as a collection of facts and recipe-like steps to follow; science is a way of thinking, reasoning and making meaning from essential experiences. Each student can develop a question they have to solving a problem and look for those answers themselves. I have been able to use this approach with students in many curriculum areas like Social Studies, Science and Math in my computer class.

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Published: April 25, 2012
Updated: July 5, 2012