The school is hopeful that the Different Ways of Knowing (DWoK) initiative as well as the integration of Multiple Intelligences (MI) in classroom instruction will help many students achieve and demonstrate mastery of the standards. The DWoK and MI approaches to teaching and learning provide multiple points of entry for students, thereby enabling them to draw on their strengths and demonstrate mastery or skill level through a variety of media and learning modalities. The school commits professional development time and resources to training teachers on how to integrate MI and DWoK in the classroom.

In several classrooms students were excited and eager to approach assignments and projects using their dominant intelligence. One student in an interdisciplinary class pulled out her notebook to share what she had learned about her own areas of strength and aptitude. In this same class, students were huddled in small learning groups organized around their specific intelligence. Their assignment was to design a presentation for their classmates demonstrating their understanding of empathy. Using this approach to learning, the students who have difficulty writing or sitting still in their chairs, have the opportunity to use movement and voice, music, or art to express their understanding of the concepts being taught. Whether this will translate into more students achieving mastery of the standards is yet to be seen, but students are engaged and say they feel valued in their classes at BCMS.

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