Learning takes place best when it can be individualized, meeting the particular needs and interests of each student. Research on differentiated classrooms, learning styles, and other such topics shows that when instruction can be made personal, students become more engaged in learning, retain what they have learned, and do well on measures of assessment.

Multiple-intelligences research encourages development of multiple paths of instruction for learners so that their strong intelligences can be engaged and their weaker ones made stronger.

Other pedagogical practices such as listening to teach and differentiated instruction support the thoughtful implementation of the theory of multiple intelligences in the classroom. When we pay close attention to students, observing how they engage in the teaching and learning enterprise and finding ways for the school environment to support their learning, we begin to encounter methods that focus educational practices on respect for how an individual learns and can thus be successful at school. Such observation and understanding of student learning lays the foundation for providing a variety of learning experiences. The framework provided by Howard Gardner in his theory of multiple intelligences addresses the needs of all learners in specific and comprehensive ways, but it works best in a context of individual attention to each student.

Listening to Teach

In Listening: A Framework for Teaching Across Differences, Katherine Schultz explains that she sees listening as an active, thoughtful practice through which teachers can more deeply understand their students and what they need in terms of the learning environment. She states, "I use the term listening to refer to more than just hearing. As used here, it suggests how a teacher attends to individuals, the classroom as a group, the broader social context, and, cutting across all of these, to silence and acts of silencing. Teachers listen for the individual voices and gestures in their classrooms; they also listen for the heartbeat or tenor of the group. ... The phrase 'listening to teach' implies that the knowledge of who the learner is and the understandings that both the teacher and learner bring to a situation constitute the starting place for teaching. Listening encompasses written words as well as those that are spoken, words that are whispered, those enacted in gesture, and those left unsaid. It is an active process that allows us to both maintain and cross boundaries. When I listen to teach, I am changed by what I hear" (Schultz, pp. 8-9).

Schultz suggests four kinds of listening that teachers must engage in to truly understand teaching and learning, and to be able to engage all students so they can be successful:

• Listening to know particular students
• Listening to the rhythm and balance of the classroom
• Listening to the social, cultural, and community contexts of students' lives
• Listening for silence and acts of silencing

By listening to individual students -- through their writing, drawing, or in one-on-one conversation, for example -- a teacher moves toward understanding how each student engages in learning. This makes it possible to provide targeted opportunities for them to grow.

All teachers understand the complexity of teaching when they face a classroom full of individuals. The art of teaching can be described as paying attention to each individual in the room along with observing and responding to the group as a whole. By understanding how individuals work together, a teacher can craft time and space for meaningful instruction.

Outside school -- where students spend more time than they do in the building -- much happens that affects students' ability to attend to their peers and teachers. It behooves teachers to understand the cultural and social contexts of their students by learning about their interests and concerns. Schultz explains, "I am not simply suggesting that teachers listen to students' stories and interests in order to incorporate those topics into the school curriculum, although that is certainly a vital approach to teaching. Rather, I propose that by holding a larger picture of how students engage in learning outside of school, teachers can enlarge their images, expectations, and interactions with students during their work together in classrooms" (p. 78).

Finally, listening for silence and silencing refers to paying attention to who is not talking, who is not allowed to talk (for example, through limiting the curriculum to exclude particular viewpoints), what is left unsaid, and instances where teacher or students stop themselves from talking.

Schultz credits the work of Deborah Meier as she states, "Placing listening at the center of teaching stands in stark contrast to the trend to hand teachers prescriptions or scripted texts from which to teach. Such pedagogies fail to take into account either the students or the context in which teaching occurs. As a result, prescriptive teaching offers information or words to teachers that do not engage students in learning. Locating listening at the center of teaching works against the notion that teachers talk and students listen, suggesting instead that teachers listen to teach and students talk to learn" (Schultz, p. 7).

Differentiated Instruction's Relationship to Multiple Intelligences

Our current educational system was founded on the industrial model -- everyone should be doing the same thing at the same time, and at the end of the day, a predictable product comes off the assembly line. Educational research has revealed that this model doesn't work for most students. Because of individual differences in understanding, interest, family, health, and other concerns, teachers are working hard to individualize teaching and learning to meet each student's needs.

In The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners, Carol Ann Tomlinson explains that "differentiation of instruction is a teacher's response to learner's needs, guided by general principles of differentiation such as respectful tasks, flexible grouping, and ongoing assessment and adjustment. Teachers can differentiate content, process, and product, according to students' readiness, interests, and learning profile" (p. 15).

Tomlinson suggests that a number of principles guide differentiated classrooms:

• The teacher is clear about what matters in subject matter.
• The teacher understands, appreciates, and builds upon student differences.
• Assessment and instruction are inseparable.
• The teacher modifies content, process, and product in response to student readiness, interests, and learning profile.
• All students participate in respectful work.
• Students and teachers are collaborators in learning.
• Goals of a differentiated classroom are maximum growth and individual success.
• The teacher and students work together flexibly.

These principles present challenges to educators as they assess where they are in reaching all students and where they need to go.

Tomlinson provides many ideas and examples in her book, including plans for specific integration of ideas.

In differentiated classrooms, the teachers are learners along with the students. They enjoy exploring the interrelationships between and among students, content, and teacher. Such teachers know that the look and feel of the classroom sets the tone for learning. Tomlinson lists a number of "characteristics of teaching and learning in healthy classroom environments" (pp. 31-34):

• The teacher appreciates each child as an individual.
• The teacher remembers to teach whole children.
• The teacher continues to develop expertise.
• The teacher links students and ideas.
• The teacher strives for joyful learning.
• The teacher offers high expectations -- and lots of ladders.
• The teacher helps students make their own sense of ideas.
• The teacher shares the teaching with students.
• The teacher clearly strives for student independence.
• The teacher uses positive energy and humor.
• And finally, the teacher has created the time and space in which to invite students to step beyond where any teacher can bring them, to the places where they explore, invent, and interpret in new ways, which they then teach in return.

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