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November 1, 1998
Vol. 56
No. 3

A Lesson Learned About Multiple Intelligences

Allowing students to use their knowledge about how they learn best can increase their enthusiasm, raise their achievment levels, and foster growth in their other intelligences.

Instructional Strategies
It was one of those endless gray, spring weeks. My creativity and my students' motivation had reached an all-time low, as had our belief that sunshine would ever return. Even my graduate course in multiple intelligences could not rouse my enthusiasm until one evening when a 3rd grade teacher described a rubric that her young students had developed to assess their own writing.
I cannot recall the details, but I remember thinking that if 3rd graders could produce a rubric of that quality, my high school students might be able to create their own assessment for an upcoming nuclear chemistry unit.

Anticipating Multiple Intelligences

As I introduced nuclear chemistry, my students groaned. They gave me suspicious looks when I asked them to help design a method to ensure that they had learned the basic concepts. After I outlined the topics, we discussed how they could demonstrate their understanding once their research was finished.
As I had learned to expect, different multiple intelligences quickly revealed themselves. My verbal-linguistic students wanted to write research reports; my spatial-visual students asked to make poster presentations. For the main topics we needed to cover, I required a one-page written summary of research (our district was emphasizing writing) for 50 percent of the grade; the other 50 percent would be an assessment piece of their choice.

Tim: Kinesthetic Intelligence

Tim, a student with a strong kinesthetic intelligence, wanted to build a model. He was excited for the first time since September, even though his enthusiasm made the other students smirk. But Tim was used to smirks and jeers. If his outdated wardrobe didn't catch the attention of his peers, then his lisp and his propensity for making inappropriate comments would. To compound the problem, Tim had reading and writing disabilities. He refused the help provided by his individualized education plan and tried hard not to be noticed for his obvious disabilities.
Tim struggled with, and complained about, the writing portion of the assignment, yet he worked diligently. He often asked for my opinion of his writing and needed constant direction in finding information. But he never asked for help with his model. Each day he gave me a progress report, and each day the design included a new component that he had "just thought of last night." How could he get steam to come out of the cooling tower? How could he simulate the noise of a nuclear power plant? He commented one day, "My mom thinks I'm doing too much work on this project." I did not reply. Tim then added, "I told her I didn't care. I like building models."
As his model took shape, he became more interested in his written work. He would exclaim (in the middle of the library), "Hey, I know what this is. I put it in my model." Tim was clearly making progress in both parts of the assignment. He wrote about each part of his model as the construction progressed. His writing evolved from lists of words to descriptive sentences. It was basic, correct information.
As the due date approached, Tim was still working on his written component, but he began to ask whether he could bring in the model early. I hesitated at first, not wanting him to rush and forget to do some part of the model, but I relented. When the day came, I was nervous because Tim was not in class when the bell rang. But in he walked, about two minutes late, with no explanation other than the smile on his face and the model in his hands. I knew from his classmates' smirks that the model was less than "cool." As Tim placed it on the front desk, I saw a shoe box, a battery, wires connecting the battery to a light, a plastic foam cup with cotton protruding from the top, and toilet tissue tubes arranged at consistent distances from one another.
I experienced one of those moments when a teacher searches for guidance and inspiration. Luckily, I found myself saying, "Tim, this looks great! Now remember, your model needs to illustrate the cooling tower, moderator, fuel rods, control rods, and generator. Show me on your model where each of these components can be found." Tim pointed to the cup and cotton and described how the cooling tower produces the billowing steam. He showed me toothpicks inside the toilet tissue tubes and explained that the fuel is stored in the fuel rods and that the control rods control the rate of the chain reaction. The tube was the moderator, which slows down neutrons so they can be absorbed to cause fission. A second tissue tube was the steam generator through which water is pumped. The light, powered by the battery, produced a nearly inaudible hum, which represented the noise the plant might generate. Although the model looked like the work of an elementary school student, the knowledge it represented was enough to answer questions on a state high school chemistry exam.
Reflection is an important part of learning, and I spent a great deal of time reflecting on what had happened with Tim. I knew from studying multiple intelligences theory that Howard Gardner has said that all human beings have several (eight) intelligences. What makes life interesting, however, is that we don't have the same strength in each intelligence area, and we don't have the same amalgam of intelligences. (Checkley, 1997, p. 9)
Any high school classroom is a garden of intelligences. Although plants look similar, each grows and produces in its own way. Just as a gardener identifies the health of the plants, a teacher must identify the strength of the logical-mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial, kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences of the students. Only in this way can she or he help students grow and produce successfully. Gardner adds, "We can all get better at each of the intelligences, although some people will improve in an intelligence area more readily than others" (Checkley, 1997, p. 10).
Anyone who works with adolescents knows it's difficult to pin a descriptor to any one of them without having to change it the next day. I learned from Tim that I was not the best judge of his intellectual strength—he was. I remembered what I learned from him and began to look at the myriad of intelligences in my other classes.

Jarrod: Spatial Intelligence

In advanced chemistry, we were studying organic chemistry and the concept of isomers, molecules with the same molecular formula but with different arrangements of atoms. Sometimes this concept is difficult for students, especially when we rotate molecules. Before I could decide how to relay this information, Jarrod, who had a strong spatial intelligence, exclaimed, "Hey, we could make isomers out of LEGOs. Just give each of us the same number and color of LEGOs, and we'll all build something different." So I did. The next day, they discovered not only that it is possible to make different models with the same pieces, but also that rotating those LEGO models in space results in the same model. Isomers tackled.

Students' Self-Knowledge

I now understand that what I know about my students' intelligences is less important than what they know about how they learn best. Gardner says, Teachers have to help students use their combination of intelligences to be successful in school, to help them learn whatever it is they want to learn, as well as what the teachers and society believe they have to learn.(Checkley, 1997, p. 10) My experiences with Tim and Jarrod taught me that it is best to ask my students how they learn. That is not to say that I shouldn't challenge their weaker intelligences. But as I found with Tim, allowing him to show his understanding in his own way challenged and improved his verbal-linguistic intelligence, his weakest intelligence.
Tim turned in his written assignment on time and earned a 96 percent on the overall assignment. His success might not have been due entirely to tapping into his strongest intelligences, but I believe this experience was a turning point in his life. Tim saw himself as a competent, confident student. For the rest of the year, he bragged about his chemistry grade and offered help to other students. He rarely sat in his seat, but roamed the room in search of anyone wanting his ideas. He never found many takers, but there was a new-found appreciation for what Tim could do. His peers learned a valuable lesson. So did his teacher. So did Tim—he went on to enroll in a local community college.
References

Checkley, K. (1997). The first seven . . . and the eighth: A conversation with Howard Gardner. Educational Leadership, 55(1), 8–13.

Sharon S. Sweet has been a contributor to Educational Leadership.

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