TEAMS

(Technology Enhancing Achievement in Middle School)

 

TEAMS (Technology Enhancing Achievement in Middle School) is an innovative delivery system designed to facilitate the integration of tyechnology and active learning into the middle school curriculum.

There are three precepts underlying TEAMS (Technology Enhancing Achievement in Middle School.

§  Interdisciplinary instructional teams consisting of two or more teachers who share a common group of students, a particular area of the school building, and a common planning time during which they work together in planning their instructional activities is the first key precept.

§  Active learning is the second key precept underlying the TEAMS approach. Active learning strategies require students to engage in “hands-on” cooperative learning activities. These activities are designed to challenge students to construct knowledge for themselves and create novel solutions to problems.

§  Frequent use of technology as an instructional tool is the third precept underlying the TEAMS approach. We live in the technology age and use this mode of learning to reach students as well as provide them with the tools to be successful lifelong learners in a global technological society.

The TEAMS curriculum is comprised of four nine-week thematic units. In each unit the subject areas of science, mathematics, social studies, and language arts are tied together around one of four themes related to the concerns and needs of middle school students. For example, at the sixth grade level, the four unit themes are Transitions, Caring, Identities, and Conflict Resolution. During each TEAMS unit, students work through several instructional “rotations”. Each rotation starts with one or two whole group activities, followed by a set of four to six small group activities, followed by a whole group activity designed to bring closure to the rotation. TEAMS materials provide detailed suggestions for each of these activities. 

There are at least four learning stations set up for each rotation that are similar to the elementary school model. For example, a language arts rotation designed to help students identify the main ideas in a passage includes the following station activities, each of which is designed to be undertaken by several pairs of students working together on the task:

§  a technology station where students use a piece of software that puts them in the role of newspaper reporters identifying the main ideas in, and writing headlines for, given newspaper stories;

§  an exploration station where students create telegrams that summarize key ideas that they must transmit to other students;

§  a second exploration station where students participate in a game in which they must identify whether given sentence strips describe a main idea or provide supporting details; and

§  a text station where students read text passages from their science and geography texts and identify the main idea in each passage.

Since 1988, CHILD has been implemented in thousands of classrooms in hundreds of schools.  Annual evaluations and research reports have consistently documented that CHILD students have higher test scores, fewer discipline problems, and strong parent satisfaction.  The U.S. Department of Education, the SERVE regional center and the Georgia Department of Education Innovation Program have validated CHILD as an effective program. The Institute for School Innovation (ISI) and independent agencies such as Florida TaxWatch have documented the success of students in Project CHILD programs when compared to their peers.  The research further demonstrates Project CHILD’s impact on third grade retentions in Florida, confirming that fewer Project CHILD students were retained than non-CHILD students.  Furthermore, there were significantly less retentions for students participating in Project CHILD prior to third grade.

The links provided below, will provide additional information of interest.

TEAMS Essential Components 

Middle School Journal Article