Implementing Multiple Intelligence Research

Fayette County High School

In 1995 Fayette's faculty and administration committed to implement training for all staff members in learning multiple intelligence methods. Visitors can walk down the halls of our school and see student art work expressing a literary concept, walls of vocabulary illustrating in art what words used to say, student-produced newspapers reporting on an historical event, hear students in a math class singing the Quadratic Formula to "Frere Jacques", floor and table lamps in classrooms, desks arranged in a circle or possibly in pairs, and hear the quiet sounds of classical music. Fayette firmly believes that such strategies have increased not only student interest and involvement but also our academic achievement. Our SAT scores have improved 12 points, the passing rate of our Advanced Placement Exams has increased 38%, 96% of our students have passed the Georgia High School Graduation Test on their first attempt, our dropout rate has decreased to 1.8%, and our daily student attendance has increased to 95.16%. (See charts on second page.)

The heart of Fayette's instructional program consolidates forces with the research on Multiple Intelligences (MI) set forth by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education and co-director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His work has mobilized our faculty to rethink our every task and view each class as a collection of several types of learners rather than merely one large group. The illustrations of concrete applications of his research decorate every wall, resound over the television, echo in math songs, and reverberate in a hundred different ways. Fayette has been doing MI for so long now that it is second nature to our faculty. Stellar examples of this approach need attention: To reinforce the writing and thinking skills of 9th grade English students reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, one creative teacher had her students put on a wedding in each class complete with costumed fairies, brides and grooms, wedding vows written in Shakespeare's eight-and-six, and a happy audience of parents ready to share in the wedding feast; math students learn the Quadratic Formula to "Frere Jacques"; German students produce a scrapbook depicting the learning objectives of the their trip to Germany.

Fayette's approach to assessment seeks to incorporate the multiple intelligences research of Gardiner as we employ several modalities in evaluation. Not only are the traditional multiple choice/essay approaches utilized, but these assessment methods are also balanced with project, portfolio, demonstration, performance, and conference to form a basis for our students' assessment program. Testing programs on a statewide and national level assist us in evaluating student progress: In October, 11th graders take the Georgia High School Writing Test and in March, the Georgia High School Graduation Test in the four content areas. For national norms, students are encouraged to take the PSAT, SAT, and ACT as well as SAT II tests. In addition, students in 11th and 12th grade enrolled in Advanced Placement classes take their national exams in May.

In recent years, the curriculum committee implemented guidelines for unit testing to ensure the inclusion of essay answers that address all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. As we continue seeking improvement in our SAT and Advanced Placement scores to raise them even higher than our current tops in the state level a cross-curriculum committee is examining strategies to that purpose. We have seen our SAT scores increase by 12 points and our advanced placement exam passing percentage has increased 38%.

As a direct influence of Fayette's professional development imperative four years ago (MI), a variety of alternative classroom assessment instruments find a strong voice in every classroom. Students complete portfolios, journals, projects, scrapbooks; present skits, homemade videos, and speeches. Research papers may take a unique form as a web site or in a Powerpoint presentation. Visitors may walk down the hall and see wall projects covering entire classrooms cataloging the cavalcade of American literature or even how ions behave in a physical science class. Technology plays an important role in alternative assessment especially in math and science classes where computers and graphing calculators are used daily-usually a portion of the assessment is calculator/computer assisted and the remaining portion is not.

Through alternative assessment, students see the interrelationships of their different subject areas. In math class, a sample journal entry might tell a story of how a line becomes a triangle. This exercise uses creative thinking, mathematical knowledge, and English grammar and composition skills. Students traditionally write a mathography --- an autobiographical sketch of the student's life in mathematics. Physics students go to the limits of creativity and ingenuity as they create Rube Goldberg projects as a requirement for completion of their course. Alternative assessment provides a clear demonstration of student knowledge at every level.