Working Styles - Project Spectrum Continued Part VI (The Arc of Learning)

Howard Gardner and his colleagues wanted to determine how a child approached a task. To do this, they had to look at cognitive or working styles and intellectual capacities. The working styles describe how a child interacts with the materials of a content area. An example would be planning an activity, reflecting on a task, and the level of persistence. At the time, fifteen areas of cognitive ability and eighteen stylistic features are stressed.

      The fifteen areas of cognitive ability examined in Project Spectrum are:

NUMBERS:

            Number Concepts

            Counting Skills

            Use of Strategy etc.

 SCIENCE:

            Measure a child's mechanical ability

            Logical Inferences

            Generation of Hypothesis etc.

 MUSIC:

            The child's ability to maintain accurate pitch

            Discrimination

            Song recognition

 LANGUAGE:

            Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

            Descriptive Language

            Dialogue

            Level of detail etc.

 VISUAL ARTS:

            Portfolios

            Detail

            Representation

            Drawing etc.

MOVEMENT:

            Dance

            Creative Movement

            Expressiveness

            Body Control

            Responsiveness to music etc.

 SOCIAL:

            Observe and Analyze

            Interaction with Peers

            Patterns of Behavior

            Social Roles etc.

      In a Project Spectrum classroom, the children are surrounded by rich and engaging materials that provide for the use of a range of intelligences. Materials are used that embody valued societal roles or end states, they draw on relevant combinations of intelligences. In the naturalist corner students examine and compare specimens to other materials. Sensory capacities and logical analytical powers are used here. In the story-telling area, students create imaginative tales using props and storyboards. In this area, they use their linguistic, dramatic, and imaginative facilities. In the building corner, students make models of their classrooms and "manipulate small-scale photographs of the students and teachers in the room". This area makes use of spatial, bodily, and personal intelligence. It is said that children need to observe competent adults or older peers at work or play in these areas.

      With observation, children come to appreciate "the reasons for the materials as well as the nature of the skills that equip a master to interact with them in a meaningful way. (Gardner, 1993). Over a year, children have ample opportunity to explore the learning areas and for the most part, teachers can readily observe a child's interests and talents during the year. At the end of the year, the research team summarized the information obtained on each child in a brief essay called a Spectrum Report. The Spectrum Report describes each child's strengths and weaknesses and gives information about what might be done at home, in school, or in the community to build on the child's strengths and weaknesses.

    The analysis presented is based on data collected during the 1986-87 and 1987-88 school years.

Project Spectrum Part V Multiple Intelligences(The Arc Of Learning)

The introduction of Project Spectrum marked a new approach to assessment. Researchers in cognitive and neural sciences provided fresh support for a diverse perspective on cognition. They proposed that the mind is divided into distinct realms of functioning (Gardner, 1993). Gardner defined intelligence as the ability to solve problems and create products that are valued in various cultural settings. According to his theory on multiple intelligences, he suggested that all normal individuals are capable of at least seven "relatively autonomous forms of intellectual accomplishment," each based on a biological potential. He also stated that individuals exhibit a mix of several intelligences. He emphasized that after early infancy, intelligences become embedded in symbol systems such as spoken language and picturing systems.

These systems are notational, such as maps and musical or mathematical notation, as well as fields of knowledge like journalism and mechanical engineering. Gardner pointed out that education represents the cultivation of intelligences over time in culturally fashioned systems. These intelligences are considered biopsychological constructs as they constitute cognitive resources that allow an individual to forge a meaningful connection to a content area. Once the intelligences have been identified, there is a need to assess them. This is the main focus of Project Spectrum. It is "an innovative attempt to measure the profile of intelligences and working styles of young children." The project, a long-term collaborative research effort by several researchers at Harvard Project Zero and David Feldman at Tufts University, focuses on preschool children and aims to detect early individual differences reliably. The project also addresses the predictive value of early identification.

The information gathered from this project can benefit both parents and teachers by providing insights into a child's cognitive competencies, especially during a time when the young child's brain is especially malleable, and schools are likely to be more flexible in their curricula. Initially, the Spectrum Project sought the early indicators of the seven intelligences, but it became apparent that many more competencies warranted examination. Gardner and his colleagues delved into production and perception in music, invented and descriptive narrative in language, and expressive and athletic movement in the bodily-kinesthetic domain.

They also used the notion of adult end states to focus on skills and abilities relevant to achieving significant and rewarding adult roles in society. Instead of concentrating solely on school-related skills, they examined competencies that utilize scientific inventiveness and the child's ability to tell a story or describe an experience.

Arts Propel /Multiple Intelligences Part IV (The Arc of Learning)

     Howard Gardner introduces Arts PROPEL which can be considered a disciplined inquiry in high school. Arts PROPEL is an approach to curriculum and assessment in the arts principally on the high school level. In working on the research of Arts PROPEL, the path- breaking methods of investigation devised by Jean Piaget in 1970 were used. By studying Piaget, three principle lines of investigation evolved. A cross-sectional experimental study of specific capacities such as: style sensitivity or metaphoric competence was done to determine the "natural" developmental trajectory of these important skills. Secondly, Gardner and his colleagues carried out naturalistic longitudinal studies of the development in early childhood of various kinds of symbol-using capacities. Thirdly, in a scientifically related body of work, Gardner and his colleagues "investigated the breakdown under conditions of brain damage of the very symbolic skills whose oncogenesis had been probing." These are the findings from this study that was conducted during the 1970's. The researchers found that in most areas of development, children improve with age.  Young children have a high level of competence in the artistic spheres whereas there is a possible decline during the middle years. Preschool children acquire a tremendous amount of knowledge about competence in the arts (Gardner, 1993). Children's drawings show that there is "self-generated learning and development".  In nearly every area, an individual's perceptual or comprehension capacities develop well in advance of productive capacities. "This finding underscores the importance of giving young children ample opportunity to learn by performing, making, or 'doing'. According to classical development theory, children's competence in one cognitive sphere should predict the child's level of competence in other spheres. Gardner and his colleagues found that it was normal for a child to be strong in one or two areas while at the same time being average or below average in their attainment in other areas. The belief has been that the brain was "equipotential". This means that each area of the brain would be capable of subserving the range of human capacities. Neuropsychological research doubts this finding that specific areas of the cortex have particular cognitive foci. After early childhood, there is little "plasticity" in the representation of cognitive capacities in the nervous system (Gardner, 1993). Project Zero has established that artistic development is complex and multivocal, and that generalizations are hard to come by and they often fall by the way. Gardner (1993) states that in his own work the various insights from Project Zero came together in his "theory of multiple intelligences". Gardner goes on to say that according to his analysis, he believes that there is not a separate artistic intelligence. He adds that each of these forms of intelligence can be directed toward artistic ends. "The symbols entailed in that form of knowledge may, but need not, be marshaled in an aesthetic fashion" (Gardner, 1993).