The first and last lesson in Part 2 provided a demonstration of how the five teaching strategies—multiple intelligences, brain-based learning, cooperative learning, problem-based learning and differentiation—could be integrated effectively in actual practice. During the first part of the lesson, only the first three teaching strategies were involved. Three groups of students were instructed to analyze themes and characters of the scene of their choice from the film version of "To Kill a Mockingbird." They were given the option of determining how they wanted to present their findings to the rest of the class. Given the opportunity to work with their peers as a team and the freedom to decide their presentation methods, the students were fully engaged in performing the necessary tasks to fulfill the teacher's requirements. Based on the diversity of the types of presentations and the quality of the work, the students were able to demonstrate their cognitive strengths and interests.
The last lesson that involved the extension of the class included the additional teaching strategies of problem-based learning and differentiated instruction. In this lesson, students were asked to address a real-life problem in the form of a research question that was derived from their analysis of the themes of the story, "To Kill a Mockingbird." The research questions could deal with money, power, race relations and others. Moreover, to further differentiate the instruction, students were encouraged to utilize a wide variety of sources beyond the classroom to do their work, thus increasing their level of independence and creativity. As with the first part of the lesson, the students were also allowed to choose their method of presentation.
The theories of the teaching strategies were represented in different ways in this lesson. First of all, Howard Gardner's (2005) refutation of the concept of a single intelligence and the identificati...