A student team approach to teaching adolescents with special emotional and behavioral needs

Teams-Games-Tournament (TGT), an instructional technique involving student teams and learning games, is proposed as an alternative classroom structure for children with special needs. TGT and individualized instruction were compared in a school for adolescents of normal intelligence experiencing problems with human relationships and academic tasks. Students were randomly assigned to treatments. A five-category behavioral observation scale recorded student interaction and task behavior. In addition, students responded to a five-item sociometric instrument. The results confirmed hypotheses that TGT would exceed individualized instruction on students' attraction to one another, frequency of peer tutoring, and percent of time on task. A five-month followup showed former TGT students distributed among six new classes to be still interacting with their peers both on and off task more than control students.