Teaching To The Test Pattern: Evan Rosenberry
He Told Them Thursday. They Said Today.
What happens when students get real tools, a real audience, and a real deadline? They often show you they are ready sooner than expected.
That is the clearest takeaway from this conversation with Evan Rosenberry, a marketing teacher at Collins Hill High School in Gwinnett County. He is not a traditional broadcast teacher. He teaches sports and entertainment marketing. But that is exactly why this story matters: in today’s classroom, video, interviewing, publishing, and presentation are no longer side skills. They are part of modern marketing education.
One of the strongest examples came when Evan handed students the VidPod and gave them a practical assignment: cover the boys soccer team this semester, decide on the format, build an outline, and prepare for the first episode by Thursday.
The students came back the same day and said, "We can do it today if you want."
They were not just enthusiastic. They were prepared. They already knew who they wanted to interview, how they wanted to structure the segment, and what needed to happen next. No one was waiting to be walked through every step.
He told them Thursday. They said today.
Why does that matter?
Because project-based learning reveals readiness in a way tests rarely can. When the assignment is real, the audience is real, and the outcome matters, students engage differently. The work stops feeling simulated. The stakes become visible. In this case, the soccer season was happening in real time, and the students were producing something that other people would actually watch.
That kind of work reveals student strengths quickly. Evan talked about students he had taught for three years who seemed to change once the microphone was on and the conversation became real. A classroom can hide confidence. A camera often does not. Students who may seem quiet in traditional settings can become thoughtful, sharp, and highly capable when the work has purpose.
The conversation is not just about podcasting. It is about what students become capable of when they are trusted with meaningful work.
How should schools handle AI in the classroom?
Evan’s view is practical. Students need to learn how to use tools like Gemini and Claude responsibly, because the workplaces they are entering will expect some level of fluency. Avoiding AI completely may feel safe, but it does not prepare students for the environments they are heading into after graduation.
He shared an example that captures this shift well. A student presentation that looked average on its own became dramatically more polished after being reworked with AI support. The real lesson was not that AI replaces student thinking. It was that students need guidance on how to improve ideas, presentation, and communication using the tools that now exist in the real world.
That is the larger thread running through the entire episode. Modern marketing education is not only about concepts. It is about communication, media fluency, adaptability, and using current tools well. Evan’s sports and entertainment marketing program shows how those skills can be built through hands-on production, not just lecture and testing.
So what is this episode really about?
It is about student readiness, project-based learning, AI literacy, and the growing connection between marketing, media, and career preparation in high school.
The specific story is memorable because it is simple. The teacher said Thursday. The students said today.
That one response says a lot about what can happen when students are given real responsibility.
Give them real tools. Give them real stakes. Then step back and see who they become.
Meet the Author, Author Name
Tom White is the director of business development at Amitrace. Tom's role is to help educators build better programs through better training, planning, and equipment. Before joining Amitrace, Tom was the Broadcast Engineer at Grady College of Journalism and Communication at the University of Georgia. Prior to that role, Tom taught at Morgan County High School and Rockdale Career Academy where he and his student produced thousands of live streams for sports, news, and community events. Tom is a member of the SkillsUSA Georgia Board of Directors and also serves as a contest tech chair for SkillsUSA Alabama and Tennessee.
What does a marketing teacher in Gwinnett County know about broadcast education? More than you'd expect.
Tom sits down with Evan Rosenberry at Collins Hill High School — the first marketing teacher in Teaching to the Test Pattern history — and the conversation goes places. AI in the classroom, why banning it might be the worst thing you can do for your students, a student MLB franchise project that ended up in Seoul, Korea, and what happened when Evan handed his kids the VidPod and said "figure it out."