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....

Phonics and Whole Language

Multiple Intelligences Part II (The Arc of Learning)

Teaching toward Multiple Intelligences: Identifying the characteristics of multiple intelligence through behavioral observation and instruction.

Introduction

In order to identify the characteristics of multiple intelligence through behavioral observation and instruction, one must first know what multiple intelligences are in theory and the practice behind them, before teaching toward them. Teaching toward multiple intelligences entails identifying the characteristic(s) of the multiple intelligence(s) that each student possesses, through the use of observation and instructional techniques. Research has been conducted on this subject by forerunners in the field. One of the major contributors of The Multiple Intelligence theory is Howard Gardner.

Multiple intelligence theory originates from the late seventies to the early eighties. In some sense it can be considered the birth child of Howard Gardner, Professor of Education and Co-Director now Senior Director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Adjunct Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine.

Before discussing multiple intelligences, we must first understand what they are.

Con't in next blog post... Howard Gardner