Curriculum Reform in Primary Schools in China: A Multiple Intelligences Curricula Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to perform a comprehensive analysis on the successful curriculum reform in Shenzhen Pingzhou Primary School, which implements a new curriculum system that adopts Gardner's eight intelligences to develop eight intelligences curricula (open formula curriculum). Furthermore, the study provides holistic research on the principle's effective curriculum leadership through five stages of curriculum management in order to find out what kinds of curriculum leadership contribute most to successful curriculum reform. The study results are 1. Planning—the principle has transformational leadership and strategic leadership. 2. Organization—the principle uses collaboration leadership. 3. Implementation—the principle adopts professional leadership and distributed leadership. 4. Monitoring—the principle uses instructional leadership. 5. Evaluation—the principle adopts transformational leadership. This study contains a deep introduction on the multiple intelligences curricula and provides practical experience for curriculum leadership implementation, which can be referenced for curriculum reform in other countries and regions.