MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES: MANY WAYS TO LEARN AND PERFORM

Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences provides another rubric for recognizing the differing gifts and talents of each student and each worker, including observation of student learning preferences from the earliest age. Gardner, of Harvard University, has argued persuasively for different kinds of intelligences other than the academic intelligence usually valued in schools. His Project Zero (www.pzweb.harvard.edu ) actively applies and researches  the model in actual schools.

Gardner (Frames of Mind , 1985) defines seven "intelligences:"

1. linguistic
2. logical-mathematical
3. musical
4. bodily-kinesthetic
5. spatial
6. interpersonal
7. intrapersonal.

The traditional learning environment, especially beginning in fourth grade, when reading and writing become the major modality of teaching and learning, greatly favors those students who learn through linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences. Children whose major learning modality is musical, spatial, and/or bodily-kinesthetic languish in such classrooms.The very gregarious child specializing in interpersonal intelligence is also wasting time, sitting quietly working alone. The strongly intrapersonal, introspective child is also not given opportunity to develop his or her special skills.

In a "multiple intelligences" classroom, students are exposed to learning opportunities through all the different "intelligences." Different stations in the classroom approach a topic through the various modalities. Students learn through movement, music, artistic creation, interpersonal teamwork, as well as language and mathematics. They are graded on skits, portfolios, peer ratings as well as traditional test scores. They are stretched to develop all of Gardner's "intelligences" as well as being allowed to develop their natural propensities toward certain of the "intelligences.

 

Like the MBTI and Keirsey Temperament Sorter, Gardner's model can be especially helpful in giving a positive definition, and teaching methods, for the active, hands-on learning style of children called ADHD.Click here to read Dr. McGuire's article "Don't Fight 'Em, Join 'Em: Community-Wide Intervention for ADHD, School Drop Out, and Juvenile Delinquency."

 

The multi-modality learning presentation can be extended into the college classroom and into presentations in the workplace. Everyone responds better when they are approached through music, art, movement, interperpersonal and intrapersonal modalities, as well as traditional language, logic, and math.

Although preferred "intelligences" are best discovered through observation of an individual's choices of modalities over time, an informal online paper-and-pencil measure can give you an idea of your own preferences:

• http://surfaquarium.com (free test; lots of information; consulting)
• www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm  ( many books applying MI in schools)
• www.pzweb.harvard.edu (Gardner's school-based programs and research)

All Kinds Of Minds: A Niche For Each Student, Each Person 

"The problem is not a lack of intelligence but a learning style that doesn't fit the assignment." Out of his experience as a pediatrician, Mel Levine defines the following systems making up learning and performance. Levine looks specifically for where a person's strengths and weeknesses lie, rather than stopping with global "diagnoses" of learning difficulties:

1. Attention Control
2. Memory
3. Language
4. Spatial Ordering
5. Sequential Ordering
6. Motor
7. Higher Thinking
8. Social Thinking

Every child and adult will have strengths and weaknesses in the various systems.

While adults are expected to have certain areas of competence, students are expected to be good at everything and to approach learning in the same way. Instead, Levine helps students, parents, and teachers to define the strengths and weaknesses of learners, and to find a "niche" for each person which capitalizes upon his or her strengths. His books, A Mind At A Time (Simon and Schuster, 2002) and The Myth of Laziness (Simon and Schuster, 2003) have led to an actual in-school program called Schools Attuned.

www.allkindsofminds.org (Levine's organization)