Multiple Intelligences as Strategy for Teaching EFL to high school graduates

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child executes a number of projects based on schoolwide themes, such as "Man and His Environment" or "Changes in Time and Space." These projects are presented and videotaped for subsequent study and analysis. A team of researchers from Harvard Project Zero is now engaged in developing a set of criteria whereby these videotaped projects can be assessed. Among the dimensions under consideration are project

conceptualization, effectiveness of presentation, technical quality of project, and originality, as well as evidence for cooperative efforts and distinctive individual features. A third effort, Project Spectrum, co-directed by David Feldman of Tufts University, has developed a number of curriculum activities and assessment options suited to the "child-centered" structure of many preschools and kindergartens .

At present, there are fifteen different activities, each of which taps a

particular intelligence or set of intelligences. Throughout the year, a Spectrum classroom is equipped with "intelligence-fair" materials. Miniature replicas and props invite children to deploy linguistic intelligence within the context of story telling; household objects that children can take apart and reassemble challenge children's

spatial intelligence in a mechanical task; a "discovery" area including natural objects like rocks, bones, and shells enables children to use their logical abilities to conduct small "experiments," comparisons, and classifications; and group activities such as a biweekly creative movement session can be employed to give children the

opportunity to exercise their bodily-kinesthetic intelligence on a regular basis. Provision of this variety of "high-affordance" materials allows children to gain experiences that engage their several intelligences, even as teachers have the chance unobtrusively to observe and assess children's strengths, interests, and proclivities.

More formal assessment of intelligences is also possible. Researchers can administer specific games to children and apply detailed scoring systems that have been developed for research purposes. For instance, in the bus game, children's ability to organize numerical information is scored by noting the extent to which they can keep track of the number of adults and children getting on and off a bus. Adults and children and on and off constitute two different dimensions. Thus, a child can receive

one of the following scores:

One dimensions recorded;

1.disorganized recording of one dimension (either adults and children or on and off);

2.labeled, accurate recording of one dimension;

3.disorganized recording of two dimensions;

4.disorganized recording of one dimension and labeled, accurate recording of one dimension; or 5labeled, accurate recording of two dimensions . They have also created a related instrument, the Modified Spectrum Field Inventory, that samples several intelligences in the course of two one-hour sessions. Although this inventory does not draw directly from the curriculum, it is based on the kinds of materials and activities that are common in many preschools. In addition, related

materials from the Spectrum curriculum can be implemented in the classroom to ensure that the children will be familiar with the kinds of tasks and materials used in the inventory. Preliminary Results from Project Spectrum Although none of these programs is in final form, and thus any evaluation must be considered preliminary and tentative, the results so far at the pilot sites seem promising. The value of rich and evocative materials has been amply documented. In the classrooms in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Boston, teachers report heightened motivation on the part of the students, even as students themselves appreciate the opportunity to reflect on their own growth and development. Moreover, our programs with both older and younger children confirm that a consideration of a broader range

of talents brings to the fore individuals who previously had been considered unexceptional or even at risk for school failure. As for the assessment instruments under development, only those of Project Spectrum have been field tested in classrooms. In 1987-89, they used these instruments in two different settings to investigate the hypothesis that the intelligences are largely independent of one another. To examine this hypothesis, we sought to determine (a)

whether young children exhibit distinct profiles of intellectual strengths and weaknesses, and (b) whether or not performances on activities designed to tap different intelligences are significantly correlated. In the 1987-88 academic year, twenty children from a primarily white, upper-middle-income population took part in a year-long Spectrum program. In the 1988-89 academic year, the Modified Spectrum

Field Inventory was piloted with fifteen children in a combined kindergarten and first-grade classroom. This classroom was in a public school in a low- to middle-income school district. In the preschool study, children were assessed on ten different activities (story telling, drawing, singing, music perception, creative movement, social analysis, hypothesis testing, assembly, calculation and counting, and number and notational logic) as well as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition. To compare children's

performances across each of the activities, standard deviations were calculated for each activity. Children who scored one or more standard deviations above the mean were judged to have a strength on that activity; those who scored one or more standard deviations below the mean were considered to have a weakness on that activity. This analysis revealed that these children did not perform at the same level across activities and suggested that they do have distinct intellectual profiles. Of the

twenty children, fifteen demonstrated a strength on at least one activity, and twelve

children showed a weakness on one or more activities. In contrast, only one child was identified as having no strengths or weaknesses, and her scores ranged from -.98 to +.87 standard deviations from the mean. These results were reinforced by the fact that, for the most part, children's

performances on the activities were independent. Using Spearman rank-order correlations, only the number activities, both requiring logical-mathematical intelligence, proved significantly correlated with one another (r = .78, p < .01). In the other areas, music and science, where there were two assessments, there were no

significant correlations. Conceivably, this result can be attributed to the fact that the number activities, both of which involved calculation, shared more features than the music activities (singing and music perception) or the science activities (hypothesis testing and mechanical skill). Of course, the small sample size also may have contributed to the absence of powerful correlations among measures. A comparison of the Spectrum and Stanford-Binet assessments revealed a limited relationship between children's performances on these different instruments.

Spearman rank-order correlations showed that only performances on the number activities were significantly correlated with IQ (dinosaur game, r = .69, p < .003; bus game, r = .51, p < .04). With its concentration on logical-mathematic and linguistic skills, one might have expected a significant correlation with the Spectrum language activity as well. Conceivably, there was no significant correlation because the

Stanford-Binet measures children's vocabulary and comprehension, whereas Spectrum measures how children use language within a story-telling task. In the second study, eight kindergartners (four boys and four girls) and seven first graders (five girls and two boys) were assessed on the seven activities of the Modified Spectrum Field Inventory (MSPFI). This inventory, based on the activities developed for the year-long Spectrum assessments of preschoolers, consists of activities in the