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).

Project Zero Multiple Intelligences Part III (The Arc of Learning)

Research

Project Zero was founded in 1967. It explored topics in education. Some of the topics explored in relation to Project Zero were deep thinking, creativity, ethics, and intelligence.

     Project Zero was founded in 1967 at the Harvard Graduate School of Education by the philosopher Nelson Goodman. What Goodman did was challenge those who thought the linguistic and logical symbol systems had priority over the expressive and communicative systems. Goodman formulated a taxonomy of the major symbol systems that are utilized by human beings (Gardner,1993). Goodman discusses symbols that are of importance to the arts. The symbols are musical, poetic, gestural, and visual graphic. He also discusses the modes of symbolization such as representation, expression, metaphor, and multiple meanings. Many became interested in Goodman's work, his point of view, and his "theory of symbols" which was adopted as a cognitive point of view.

     In the 1970's, Howard Gardner and David Perkins became the leaders in the Project Zero effort. The project became fully devoted to psychological issues. Perkins was responsible for directing a "Cognitive Skills Group" where the primary interest was in the perceptual and cognitive capacities of adults, whereas Gardner directed a "Developmental Group", where the focus was on the development of symbol-using skills in normal and gifted children. More than half the studies in which Gardner and Perkins were involved in entail "more-or-less direct efforts to apply analyses and insights to programs in schools, ranging from preschool to the college level. Project Zero has involved over a hundred researchers. Contributions to this project range from the fields of the humanities to the fields of the social sciences. The works of Garner and his colleagues have been reviewed collectively.

Multiple Intelligences, an Overview Part I (The Arc of Learning)

Overview

      In a traditional view, intelligence is defined operationally as the ability to answer items on the tests of intelligence. (Gardner, 1993) Multiple intelligences theory pluralized the traditional concept of what an intelligence really is. "An intelligence entails the ability to solve problems or fashion products that are of consequence in a particular cultural setting or community. The problem-solving skill allows one to approach a situation in which a goal is to be obtained and to locate the appropriate route to that goal."  (Gardner, 1993)

The multiple intelligence theory comes from the biological origins of problem-solving skills. To identify an intelligence, one must have knowledge about normal development and development in gifted individuals, information about the breakdown of cognitive skills under conditions of brain damage, studies of exceptional populations, including prodigies, and autistic children, data about the evolution of cognition over the millennia, cross cultural accounts of cognition, psychometric studies, including examinations of correlations among tests, and psychological training studies, particularly measures of transfer and generalization across tasks. (Gardner, 1993)

       Each intelligence, according to Howard Gardner, must have an identifiable core operation or set of operations. Each intelligence is triggered by internally or externally presented information. The intelligence must also be susceptible to encoding in a Symbol System. This Symbol System is a culturally contrived system of meaning that captures and conveys important forms of information. An example of some of these symbol systems are language, picturing, and mathematics.

To be con't....