South Effingham Middle School provides classroom instruction that is student-centered and complex by applying the knowledge and skills they have learned while solving real-world problems. While students are engaged in the problem-solving lessons, teachers at South Middle enhance the lessons by incorporating appropriate rigor within the student learning process. Our gifted coordinator, Jaclyn Mosley, works with students and teachers to explore the rigor and advancements of South Effingham Middle School. 

CIA Data

At South Effingham Middle, we have 50 teachers teaching gifted students, 29 of whom hold a Georgia Gifted Certification on their license. In total, 58% of our teachers are gifted certified. We currently have five teachers going through the gifted certification process. This will bring the total percentage of gifted certified teachers to 68%.  We strive to continue to increase the number of Georgia Gifted certified teachers each year.

In classroom instruction, we use gifted models that allow the teachers to move at a more efficient speed for gifted students as well as give them the ability to enrich and extend the rigor of their lessons for the class and specified gifted students.  For the classes that use the advanced content model, we use advanced content descriptions (completed through Google Forms and held by the county) that explain how that teacher is adding rigor to their lesson plans and instruction throughout the year. For the collaborative model classes, the teacher creates gifted contracts that explain how the teacher is planning to add rigor to the curriculum throughout the quarter, semester, or year. These teachers add the rigor components in their lesson plans as well. The students must sign these to show they agree to this level of instruction. These contracts are supported by the teachers' lesson plans that detail the gifted differentiation occurring in their tasks and instruction. Weekly, the content teacher meets with a gifted-certified teacher to document the plans they are making for the gifted students' enrichment and extension of the content. All of the documents are turned in to the gifted Facilitator and filed.

SEMS teachers have identified STEA2M standards across the grade levels in the areas of science, technology, engineering, art, agriculture, and math. The content standards identified are from the Georgia Standards of Excellence in science, math, fine arts, computer science,  and CTAE (Career, Technical, and Agricultural Education) disciplines. The STEA2M PLC time is used to analyze and reflect on content areas to ensure standards are covered with fidelity. The planning is led by the school’s STEA2M coach. During these Data Teams/planning sessions, teachers collaborate to identify priority standards and develop lessons using high-impact instructional strategies and high-rigor lessons/activities for our students. 

SEMS teachers also use Common Interim Assessments (CIAs) which all students in the Effingham School District are given, to identify standards and prepare for lessons based on student data. Utilizing this data to support GT instruction ensures the full potential of our exceptional students. By tailoring instruction based on data, teachers at SEMS encourage students to make connections across different subjects and incorporate interdisciplinary learning which promotes critical thinking and creativity. In this way, data-driven gifted instruction within interdisciplinary lessons not only enhances academic performance but also nurtures a well-rounded and adaptable skill set in gifted students.

At South Effingham Middle School, qualifying eighth-grade students are eligible to be placed in advanced content classes that are accredited at the high school level. The classes offered are 9th Grade Physical Science and 9th Grade Algebra 1. Both courses are taught by SEMS teachers and integrate relevant 8th-grade standards with the 9th-grade standards. By taking these advanced content courses, students are placed on an accelerated track for high school with the possibility of taking college-level courses by their junior or senior year.

Sixth grade has partnered with Georgia Southern University and Biztown. Students are learning how to earn and spend their money, open savings accounts, go to work, start a business, and decide how to use idle time away from work. In this opportunity, students learn how to run a business that produces goods and/or services for the citizens of Biztown. Students learn to use basic free enterprise concepts to produce goods and services. Student-led activities include giving examples of scarcity, profit, and free enterprise. Also, students will evaluate if family dynamics have enough resources allocated for each member such as food, clothing, housing, etc. Furthermore, the students will analyze various private and public goods to see which category the goods fit into. Students incorporate economics by learning how tax dollars pay for public goods. Students learned this by breaking down an example of a payday check into gross and net pay. Students learn how tax dollars are taken out and used for public goods and services.

Financial literacy is introduced to the students by discovering how to spend their money, open bank accounts, and access loans. They learn about the different types of banking institutions and how each one operates. Activities include filling out a bank application and writing checks with a ledger sheet. Along with the lesson is the usage of debit and credit cards and knowing the difference between the two. Moreover, students learn the steps toward work and readiness and how education plays an important role. Students also analyze different education paths and how they impact their future by comparing and graphing salary earnings based on education attainment. 

Lastly, the students learn how to manage a business. At Biztown they are given a real-world company (ie, Chick-fil-A, Enmarket, Savannah City Hall, etc) and operate it based on the role they were given. Roles include CEO, CFO, COO, manager, and worker. Students must calculate payroll, insurance benefits, cost analysis of products, and buying and selling of goods. Every student participates by contributing to the success or failure of their business.

Seventh-grade students participate in the Stock Market Game™ during Social Studies. Economic education extends beyond mere financial literacy; it encompasses an understanding of the broader economic forces that influence individuals' financial situations in both the present and the future. Modeled after equity markets, the Stock Market Game™ demonstrates to students how economic concepts like scarcity, trade, opportunity cost, voluntary exchange, price incentives, specialization, and productivity are manifested within the financial institutions frequently featured in daily news. Unlike genuine equity markets, the Stock Market Game™ offers students a secure and risk-free environment to grasp the sometimes costly lessons of market economics where teams of up to five students manage a hypothetical portfolio of $100,000 and invest in stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ. The achievements of students at SEMS participating in this program include multiple teams ranking among the top 100 in the state and outperforming over 3,700 teams, even when competing against high school economics classes statewide. Our students have benefited from this program by receiving training from Georgia Southern University Professor, Dr. Jason Beck, and they can compete in this competition because of the Georgia Council for Economic Education and the SIFMA Foundation. We will conclude the Stock Market Challenge by providing our students with the opportunity to share their discoveries with our parents and other community members.  Students will complete displays to describe the project and then share them with parents and other community visitors during our showcase event.  

"Shocking the Pond" is an engaging lesson for 8th-grade students at SEMS to explore the principles of electricity and its effects on water. In this lesson, students were introduced to the fundamental concepts of electricity and its interaction with water. They applied scientific inquiry skills to investigate and draw conclusions about the experiment.

In the science classroom, students discussed the concept of electricity. They shared their existing knowledge about electricity, its functioning, and its everyday applications. The teachers then introduced the experiment by stating, "We're going to perform 'Shocking the Ponds' in two locations at Honey Ridge Agricenter to gain a deeper understanding of how electricity interacts with water." The students traveled to HRA, where they partnered with the community from Richmond Hill Fishery and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to experiment. They observed the effects of applying electricity to the water and discussed their observations with the students.

Furthermore, students had the opportunity to handle the fish, documenting their types, weights, and lengths from both ponds. Back in the classroom, they compared the information collected from the two ponds. The students also had to explain their observations regarding what happened when electricity was applied to the water and share their insights into the interaction between electricity and water.

To follow up, the students visited Honey Ridge Agricenter once more, where the Richmond Hill Fishery and DNR provided a lesson on invasive and non-native fish after collecting the data. They explained that catfish would be added to the ponds and had the students identify their classification and explain the reasons behind adding catfish.

By providing hands-on experimentation with scientific inquiry, students gained an understanding of how electricity can have a relationship with water to help provide more information about our resources.