Clashing+Views+Summary-+Mo+et+al

** YES: ** "Orchestrating Multiple Intelligences" - Seana Moran, Mindy Kornhaber, and Howard Gardner **
 * Clashing views in Ed Psych: Summary of Yes/ No positions on multiple intelligences**-- **Mo, Katie, Rob, Mike, Deby



- Multiple intelligences (MI) was originally developed as an explanation of how the mind works - not as an education policy. - MI theorists sought to demonstrate that students bring to the classroom diverse intellectual profiles - Instead of students defining themselves as either "smart" or "dumb", they can perceives themselves as smart in a number of ways.
 * Introduction:**

- Each learner's intelligence profile consists of relative strengths/weaknesses among the different intelligences:
 * Profile of Strengths/Weaknesses:**

- Most people have jagged profiles, and therefore they process some types of information better than other types. - //Laser Profile// - students with one or two very strong intelligences and the others relatively weak. - //Searchlight Profile// - students who show less pronounced differences among intelligences; the challenge with these students is to help them choose a career and life path - Remember, intelligences are not isolated and they can interact with one another in an individual to yield a variety of outcomes (i.e. a successful dancer must combine musical, spatial and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences).

- //Interference// - Intelligences may not always work in harmony, and they may sometimes create discord (i.e. good social skills (interpersonal skills), but weak understanding of words/communication (linguistic) may have trouble making friends). - //Compensation// - Sometimes one intelligence compensates for another (i.e. a student may give a great presentation because he can effectively use body posture and gestures, even though his sentence structure is lacking) - //Enhancement// - One intelligence may jumpstart another. Understanding how intelligences can catalyze one another may help students - and teachers - make decisions about how to deploy the intellectual resources they have at their disposal. **
 * Internal Orchestra of Intelligences:

- MI theory encourages collaboration across students; students with //compatible// profiles (exhibiting the same patterns of strengths and weaknesses) can word together to solidify and build on strengths. - Students with //complementary// profiles (in which one student's weak areas are another student's strengths) can work together to compensate for one another.
 * An Effective Ensemble:

Provide Rich Experiences: - Vygotsky emphasized that //experience// (the way each individual internalizes the environment's information) is important to both cognitive and personality development. - Rich experience enables students to learn along several dimensions at once, as well as provide diagnostic information about how/why students truly understand or misunderstand information. - Explorama at Danfoss Universe, a science park in Nordborg, Denmark - designed according to the MI theory is an interactive museum used by people of all ages. The designers devised separate exhibits, games and challenges for each intelligence, as well as numerous combined intelligences. (Examples of activities: computerized questionnaire to assess own intelligences, manipulating a joystick to control a robot that lifts a cube)

Develop Personal Intelligences: - Two personal intelligences - //intrapersonal, interpersonal - Intrapersonal// - involves knowing yourself, your talents, energy level, interests, etc. - //Interpersonal// //-// involves understanding others through social interaction, emotional reactions, conversation, etc. - Microsocieties can teach students how to use both intrapersonal and interpersonal skills in real-life situations, learning interdependence and individual strengths.

Building Active Learners: - Although a common misconception, the MI approach does not require a teacher to design a lesson in nine different ways so that all students can access the material - It should create rich experiences in which students with different intelligence profiles can interact with the materials and ideas. - Often the experiences are collaborative and provide context for students to become aware of their intelligence profiles, develop self-regulation, and participate more actively in their own learning. **

=** NO: ** "Multiplying the Problems of Intelligence by Eight" - Perry D. Klein =



- Some researchers in the psychometric tradition have rejected MI theory outright because they argue that Gardner's intelligences correlate positively with IQ and therefore are factors of //general intelligence//.
 * Introduction:

Conceptual Problems:** - Multiple Intelligences theory invites circular reasoning. For example: A person is a good dancer because they have a high bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. What's a high bodily-kinesthetic intelligence? An ability to use his body in skilled, differentiated ways to express himself and accomplish goals. Well, that same definition could also be used to describe a good dancer, or so to say: He's a good a dancer because he's a good dancer. - Furthermore, Gardner's concept of multiple intelligences claims that each was a separate module in the brain, and that each performs independently. That's really tough to prove, not only from a neuroscience angle, but from a "What about when two or more are clearly in use simultaneously?" angle. [ex. musical and bodily kinesthetic --> playing a complicated piece of music]


 * Empirical Problems:

- Exceptional Problems** This problem contradicts Gardner's notion that geniuses demonstrate a high degree of acumen in a single intelligence, proving its existence. The immediate problem identified is that many geniuses, such as Albert Einstein and Virginia Woolfe, demonstrate a high degree of acumen in multiple intelligences. Where, then, do the lines between intelligences meet? Or is there a line at all? Says no.

Essentially, Gardner prefers not to explain how certain elements of intelligence, such as language and logic, are housed under one of eight intelligences yet play an important role in all of them. It's tough to have good interpersonal skills if you can't speak well, for example. Gardner counts on "waves of symbolization" to explain this part of things.
 * - Transfer of Learning**

In many research experiments, attempts to measure independent intelligences among students would often correlate strongly with one another, suggesting that the two were linked. It was difficult to ever identify the presence of single intelligence in a student that couldn't be linked to another.
 * - Psychometric Research**

The author argues that if independent intelligences exist, they should be able to carry out tasks independently, since they would not interfere with one another. Of course, reading, a linguistic activity, requires visual understanding. So what gives? It's unlikely that their are truly independent intelligences going on in there, or else experiments could be derived that prove their independence.
 * - Experimental Studies**

Here the author first contradicts the notion that teaching towards multiple intelligences gives a useful framework for teaching, even if the theory is not strictly adhered to. He cites another scholar who claims that teachers merely discuss the theory, but don't change the way they teach. In schools where the curriculum is based on multiple intelligences, the author points out that some intelligences, such as mathematical and linguistic, are much more important than others, and encouraging students to work towards their strengths can disadvantage them.
 * - Pedagogical Problems**:

** TO BE DELETED UPON REVIEW WITH GROUP: **
// I borrowed this from Melanie in the Intelligence section, I think it gives us a good base point. // // -Deby // // Classic // Spearman Brown (1904): first theory based on research; two factor theory 2 Factor theory: general (g) intelligence supersedes specific (s) variance; heavily biased towards what is being tested Thurstone (1938): intelligence is comprised of eight primary (and independent) abilities (verbal comprehension, verbal fluency, number, perceptual speed, inductive reasoning, spatial visualization, memory, existential) //**
 * // Sir Francis Galton (1865): hereditary

// Gardner's Theory // -should not be limited to one test or performance type, but leaned towards a portfolio assessment and real world situations -types of intelligence: 1. linguistic, 2. logical-mathematical, 3. spatial, 4. musical, 5. bodily-kinesthetic, 6. intrapersonal, 7. interpersonal, 8. naturalist -implication: multiple modality in presenting material to trigger different learning types for each type of material //**
 * // -intelligence is the ability to solve problems or to create products that are valued within one or more cultures

// Robert Sternberg // // -intelligence is the ability to achieve one's goals in life, given one's sociocultural context -accomplished by knowing strengths and weaknesses, adapting to environments and/or analytic, creative and practical abilities -Triarchic Theory (1977, 1985, 1995): three factors of intelligence --analytical (componential) ---academia's version of intelligence; mental processes -- creative (experimental) ---holistic and insightful approach; certain automaticity; think 'outside the box' --practical (contextual) ---street smarts; common sense; how the individual relates to the world around them //
 * // -implication: recognize some students may have strengths and weaknesses in various areas; cater to those needs //**

// Dweck (1999) // --intelligence is fixed for a certain individual --perceived limited capabilities leads to limiting challenges and exposure to that topic --research suggests this mindset limits student performance, students are more anxious about schoolwork -incremental approach --intelligence grows by being exercised and challenged --believe with hard work, anything is possible; mistakes are part of the learning process --research suggests students seek life-long learning //
 * // -entity view

// I think we should expand on the differences in here as well: There is some debate as to whether the multiple intelligences theory should or could be applied as a pedagogical tool. For instance, if a curriculum was to play to the MI theory, the teacher would need to assess which intelligences are a strength in each student, and also determine their weaknesses. Each lesson would need to be constructed in a way that would be challenging, yet attainable for each student for maximum effectiveness. This could prove unrealistic when you consider class size. The thing to take away from this is that an instructor should develop a varied curriculum that would allow different projects to speak to each student. If we were not to play according to Gardner's theory of MI and apply a different theory, then we can move on to another approach. Although Dweck's entity view has shortcomings in that it can promote anxiety for children, I like the idea that if a student works hard, then the intelligence will strengthen much like exercising a muscle. //

// I think this almost covers the summary of the yes/no positions, what else do you guys think we should go into? This basically sums up all the different ideas each person had. // // -Deby //**