http://www.catskillcenter.org/programs/edu/csp/H20/Lesson3/edpsych.htm
catskillcenter.org
by Cindy Ybos and Patty Watts
A different kind of smart – that’s the hottest topic of discussion in classrooms across the country today. For many years, educators believed that “intelligence” was fixed and, therefore, individuals die with the same intelligence with which they were born. Another misconception was that there was only one way to define and measure intelligence. Modern research has seriously challenged those ideas, however. The currently accepted theory of multiple intelligences, which is based on research about how people learn, has changed how teachers facilitate and assess learning. Educators no longer focus on “how smart students are” but on “how students are smart.”
The theory of multiple intelligences, developed by Howard Gardner and his associates, holds that every individual possesses several different and independent capacities for solving problems and creating products. Gardner has named these capacities “intelligences” and has scientifically identified eight of them. To facilitate understanding and implementing them, Gardner has grouped some of these intelligences into three categories.
The language-related intelligences, verbal/linguistic and musical/rhythmic, reflect the structures of individual languages. These two intelligences are “object free”, meaning that thoughts are represented through sound-based communication and symbolic representations of those sounds. Yes, car salesmen do have this intelligence. There’s a frightening thought.
The second category, personal relationships, consists of interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. These are the people-centered intelligences. They reflect the personal vision of self, expectations of others, accepted norms of thinking and acting, and the cultural pressures that shape behavior.
The third category is object-related intelligences. These include bodily/kinesthetic, visual/spatial, and logical/mathematical. The designation of object-related means that the basic concepts and procedures are rooted in physical manipulation of concrete objects that results in a defined product. These intelligences are subject to the “rules of the game” for using the objects to solve a problem or make a product.
The newest intelligence to be identified is naturalist intelligence. This is the ability to differentiate the patterns and characteristics among natural objects in the environment. Charles Darwin and Project Learning Tree (PLT) facilitators are often cited as examples of people who have naturalist intelligence.
Researchers say that each of us is born with all eight intelligences and no one intelligence is superior to another. Every individual possesses a unique blend of the seven intelligences that was determined by the environment in which the intelligences developed. It, therefore, becomes the responsibility of the educator to provide students the means for developing and using all eight intelligences to build knowledge. As with other instructional strategies, PLT has already incorporated many of the key aspects of multiple intelligences theory into its activities.
One of the simplest ways to include multiple intelligences in your workshop is to ask participants to “represent” the data they have collected during a PLT activity, such as Water Wonders, using one of the eight intelligences. Each group can be invited to use the intelligence with which they are most comfortable or you can assign an intelligence to each group. By doing this, you encourage them to really let their personalities shine! We have found that groups will dance, sing, draw pictures, make models, create graphs, or do calisthenics to report their findings from PLT activities. Using the multiple intelligence techniques such as this not only helps educators focus on the individuality of their students, it also provides an excellent opportunity to really have a fun workshop.
While all of this information about Multiple Intelligence Theory may seem overwhelming, the main idea we would like for you to get from this article is that PLT activities already incorporate a great deal of this theory. Just by doing the activities, you are modeling some aspects of Multiple Intelligence Theory in your workshops and with some small modifications, you can model all aspects of it. It also is important that you think about how combinations of activities will address all of the intelligences when planning your workshop.
In future articles, we will examine each category of intelligence, share specific tips and strategies for livening up your workshops using multiple intelligences, and suggest activities that highlight each intelligence.
