by Martha Jean
World Education / NCSALL
Connecting Research and Practice,
Volume 3, Issue A, March 1999
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Perhaps you've been in the same place I was in 1996. I was a teacher, preparing students to take the tests of General Educational Development (GED). We spent much of class time using GED workbooks. Many of my students, most of whom were homeless, had great difficulty giving long-term attention to academic subjects and retaining the information being taught. Many students with these problems did not stay in the program long enough to reach their GED goals, yet I could see that these learners had abilities that made the world a better place. Then, I heard about the NCSALL's Adult Multiple Intelligences (MI) Project. I wanted to join the project because I had read a little bit about MI and was anxious to give some time and thought to how it could serve my learners.
Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory fit my observations of the students in my classrooms. MI theory proposes that there are eight and maybe more identifiable intelligences. The learners in my classrooms were smart in many different ways. Gardner defined intelligence as an ability to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in one or more cultures. He acknowl edges the two traditionally accepted intelligences, which he calls mathematical/logical and linguis tic, but he also theorizes the existence of the interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial, musical, bodily/ kinesthetic, and naturalistic intelligences as well. Drawing, fixing cars, singing, resolving conflicts, or composing a poem, skills my students possessed, all fit this model. I wanted to figure out a way for students to use their multiple intelligences to connect productively with GED material.
In the first year of the AMI project, my teacher research question was whether GED-based, MI-informed activities would help students use their intelligences as learners and GED test-takers. I taught two classes of four to seven students; each class met twice a week for a total of six hours a week. I would use MI activities with one of my two classes, and my usual approaches with the other as a comparison group.