One recent afternoon at Eastview School in Algonquin, a group of 3rd graders dropped to the ground and begin pawing at a pile of paper bones.
The six “puppies” posed a question to the rest of teacher Jennifer Williams’ class: How should they split up the 66 treats evenly?
“Sixty-six divided by six is 11,” offered a chuckling classmate.
Another group of students, imagining themselves at a Puff Daddy concert, mulled over how to divide up a dozen flowers they supposed were tossed to them by the rap star.
It was not your typical math class, but a scenario that is becoming more familiar at Eastview and other area schools.
Williams is one of several Eastview teachers who have begun incorporating “multiple intelligences” lessons in their classrooms this year.
The method of teaching, formally pioneered by Harvard University education professor Howard Gardner in the 1980s, suggests that students learn in many different ways.
Some process information best through traditional modes such as listening, reading and writing, which Gardner classifies under “linguistic” intelligence.
Other students grasp concepts more readily through different intelligences, such as “bodily-kinesthetic”: expressing ideas and learning skills by manipulating objects or through acting or dancing.
Other intelligences identified by Gardner are logical-mathematical, musical, spatial or visual, inter- and intrapersonal and naturalist.
Within Community Consolidated School District 300, Eastview and Dundee Middle Schools have instituted multiple intelligences teaching as part of their official goals in recent years.
At other schools in the district and beyond, individual teachers are increasingly incorporating the methods, said Tom Hay, director of professional development for the district, which held a three-day class on multiple intelligences two years ago.
“It’s kind of a trend now,” said Williams, who is studying the method in graduate school classes she is taking through Chicago’s St. Xavier University. Williams added that she and other educators used some of the methods long before consciously incorporating them into their lessons, however.
“A lot of teachers do it without realizing they’re using multiple intelligences,” Williams said.
While pupils in Williams’ classroom make up jingles to remember the order of planets from the sun, for example, pupils have been learning through musical intelligence ever since someone made up the alphabet song.
Though Williams said research suggests that multiple intelligences teaching helps students learn better, she said she has not yet begun to track whether the methods boost her pupils’ test scores.
McWayne School, serving kindergartners through 5th graders in Batavia, opened in 1993 as one of the first public schools in the country with multiple intelligences incorporated throughout its curriculum.
Principal Alan McCloud said pupils’ test scores at the magnet school are about the same as those of other elementary school pupils in the Batavia school district, but a study conducted last year showed that McWayne graduates tend to do better than other pupils once they reach middle school.
Regardless of quantifiable outcomes, many educators and students give multiple intelligences teaching high marks for making learning more fun.
“You get to be creative and use your mind the way you want to,” said Kyle Enot, one of Williams’ 3rd graders.
Williams said it’s more challenging to try to find ways to introduce each intelligence into a teaching unit than to simply lecture.
“But it’s worth it,” she said. “It’s a fun way of teaching, and it’s a more interesting and exciting approach for the students. I have them more fully engaged.
“All around, everybody is just more motivated and excited to be in the room.”
