Using Students' Strengths to Support Learning Outcomes

This study describes a classroom intervention designed to support students' self knowledge as learners by the provision of a program of differentiated learning tasks. The students were encouraged to develop their own learning strategies based on the strengths they had identified using Gardner's Multiple Intelligences domains. They then used these strategies to improve their academic success in literacy. The students' individual interview responses, gathered during the duration of the study, provided evidence that the students became increasingly aware of the individual nature of the construction of knowledge and of their personal capacities to acknowledge their own relative strengths and limitations. They set, monitored and achieved their individual learning goals. In addition to improved learning outcomes in literacy, the students demonstrated a greater awareness of the importance of works habits to overall success. They started tasks more promptly, remained engaged for longer periods of time and completed a greater percentage of set tasks. Their improved knowledge of 'self as learner' empowered these students.