MI-News, Summer 2000, Volume 2, Number 2
Table of contents1 Welcome message by Clifford Morris
2 The parenting corner by Clifford Morris
3 Encouraging performances of understanding by Howard Gardner
4 Multiple intelligences at a community college by Joyce Ksicinski and Rex Sinclair
5 For your intelligences only by Clifford Morris
1 Welcome message by Clifford MorrisWelcome readers to the Summer 2000 issue of the MI-News. To all of our continued readers, thanks for riding the MI train. For those of you who are visiting us for the first time, MI-News is provided free by Branton Shearer's Multiple Intelligences (MI) Research and Consulting. The goal of this newsletter is to provide you with theoretical and practical information about Howard Gardner's MI Theory. We always try to explore MI applications via discussion, contact and sharing.
We hope that you find this edition interesting and informative. To start, I would like to share with you part of the contents of a recently received email from a Mr. Garry Dennis, a grade 4 state funded public school classroom teacher. His email described how he recently taught a geometry lesson to his students. As I can not match his prose, I shall quote him directly and from the beginning of his comments:
"My name is Gary Dennis and I am a new reader of the MI-News newsletter. I was reading the lesson plans that were recently submitted and I appreciated them very much. I have been teaching in the range of grades three to eight in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, for the past 28 years. I recently attended a Performance Learning Systems (PLS) course on MI and I am growing with MI Theory. If I were still in school administration and 20 years younger, I would want to work towards a whole school using MI in the classrooms.
What makes the most sense to me in regards to MI Theory is to use it in two ways. Mi (get the pun!) first preference is to use it to vary instruction using all eight (8) of the intelligences in the classroom. Can you imagine how we would maintain the students' interest in lessons if we could do this? The second way would be to use a project approach with opportunities for students to select from activities that would each highlight one of the intelligences. Presentation of the projects would ensure that everyone addresses the Interpersonal Intelligence."
I would like to share a geometry lesson that I recently taught to my grade 4 students. The concepts involved teaching slides, flips, and turns. In the past, I would have gone right to the dotted paper and used the overhead projector to aid my teaching. This time, I chose to emphasize the Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence approach. My classroom has square tiles on the floor so I had students stand about the room on tiles and I had them move one tile at a time using the up - down - right - left movements that are used in slides. Then I progressed to move Up 5, Right 6. I couldn't believe how quickly the kids had caught on. They had very little difficulty when we moved to using paper and pencil. For teaching flips, a group of students lay on the floor and became the flip line. Another group formed a shape on one side of the flip line while the students who were to become the flip image had their backs turned. The flip image group then had to work as a group and become the flip image. We did a similar activity to demonstrate turns using the floor tiles. I tend to write a little too concisely but I hope that you see how simple but powerful a little MI Theory can be.
2 The parenting corner by Clifford MorrisI am often invited to speak to educators, in particular, to classroom teachers and to groups of pre-service teachers in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa about Howard Gardner's (HG) Multiple Intelligences (MI) model. Invariability, I am asked to recommend books of an informative, interesting, and practical MI nature. In my next talk, I shall surely recommend the below four book, recently received from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).
Most generally speaking, all of the following four books well outlined the HG model of the mind and how MI theory can best serve others. As well, I found that the four books were a most interesting and enjoyable read. Actually, I had not planned on reviewing them for this newsletter. Initially, I had only planned on reading them and placing them on my subscriptions table for others to see and possibly to purchase. However, after truly enjoying their message and being quite impressed with what the five authors had to say, I decided to write up the following short review.
Here then are those four books, followed by my comments.
Becoming a Multiple Intelligences School
by Thomas R. Hoerr.
Copyright © 2000 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
Alexandria, Virginia USA
ISBN 0-87120-365-0 (paperback) 113 pp., $23.95 U.S.Multiple Intelligences and Student Achievement: Success Stories from Six Schools
by Linda Campbell and Bruce Campbell.
Copyright © 1999 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
Alexandria, Virginia USA
ISBN 0-87120-360-X (paperback) 108 pp., $15.95 U.S.Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, 2nd Edition
by Thomas Armstrong.
Copyright © 2000 by Thomas Armstrong
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
Alexandria, Virginia USA
ISBN 0-87120-376-6 (paperback) 154 pp., $22.95 U.S.ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the classroom
by Thomas Armstrong.
Copyright © 1999 by Thomas Armstrong
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Alexandria (ASCD), Virginia USA
ISBN 0-87120-359-6 (paperback) 126 pp., $11.95 U.S.Those who purport to offer Multiple Intelligences (MI) programs, be they classroom teachers, parents, or school administrators, claim that they can successfully present children with different avenues for learning almost anything. Can such a wide ranging pronouncement be actually possible? For example, how can one classroom teacher with say 25 students, or a parent with four young children at home, or a school principal with the educational responsibility over 35 teachers and 500 students possibly address the following eight intelligences, or to cite directly from Howard Gardner, the 'father' of MI, eight "windows of learning into the same classroom"?
1. Visual-spatial—art smart: creative, imaginative, and perhaps more a visual learner
2. Bodily-kinesthetic—body smart: agile, energetic, touching and talking healthily
3. Logical-mathematical—math smart: logical, inventive, and a problem-solver
4. Linguistic-verbal—word smart: reader, writer, and perhaps more an auditory learner
5. Musical-rhythmic—music smart: sings, plays, and is rhythmic
6. Naturalistic—category smart: holistic thinker, classifier and appreciates the environment
7. Interpersonal—people smart: a socializer, a listener, and a keen communicator
8. Intrapersonal—'me' smart: strong-willed, intuitive, and an introspective learnerPerhaps you have recently asked yourself that same question. In other words, are you now perchance thinking about restructuring your classroom program or, if you are a school administrator, conceivably considering a reorganization of your entire school program to incorporate the Gardner MI model? If you responded to the above questions in the affirmative, then I would strongly suggest that you read the above four books. They are a must read before you commence any form of restructuring.
First of all, in Becoming a Multiple Intelligences School, Thomas Hoerr presents an insider's account of how to apply MI to all aspects of schooling. His details on the 10-year process he and his colleagues encountered are thoroughly outlined. He systematically describes how to familiarize MI theory to parents, students, and faculty, including the magnitude of instilling a teamwork approach throughout the development of such a school. I especially found his comments on how to develop new assessment for tracking and reporting student growth to be refreshing, innovative, and so welcomed.
Second, Linda and Bruce Campbell's Multiple Intelligences and Student Achievement provides a fascinating commentary on implementing MI in six schools that have used MI theory for at least five years -- two elementary, two middle, and two secondary -- in California, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Washington. Their case study approach chronicles the application between all types of students. Moreover, they suggest applying MI instructional approaches that are positive and engaging such that all students benefit from schooling.
Third, Thomas Armstrong two books, his expanded 2nd Edition, Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, and ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the classroom updates Gardner's MI theory as confirmed classroom applications. In both books, Armstrong encourages teachers to show a more holistic view that validates individuals for who they truly are.
The first book, Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, outlines innovative strategies for integrating an eighth intelligence, the naturalist. Moreover, Armstrong presents new outlooks, including three potential predicaments, about the possibility of a ninth intelligence -- the existential -- the intelligence of concern with ultimate life issues and its potential. Armstrong's insights for teaching and learning, recent case studies and research on the effective uses of MI theory represents a welcomed update.
Before commenting on Armstrong's other book, an important aside to all parents interested in rearranging their home learning environments around Gardner's MI model. While Armstrong has fittingly tailored his revised version to the practicing classroom teacher, I would strongly recommend Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, 2nd Edition to parents who continuously want to help their children discover meaningful career paths that their offspring will find most enjoyable. This excellent book contains numerous practical tips, strategies, and proven examples from current educational environments, in the main, from current state funded public schools. Armstrong provides ideas, resources and teaching tools that parents can immediately use to help their girls and boys achieve their fullest potential. As well, by using the many ideas from this excellent resource book, parents, as well as practicing classroom teachers, can consider different career choices and how those under their charge might feel about them. Parents wishing to view a web site that highlights MI and careers, can click here.
The second book by Armstrong, ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the classroom, highlights imaginative student journeys, bodily-kinesthetic cues, posters, drama, and dances as feasible classroom strategies for empowering children stamped with the negative ADD/ADHD label. Instead of looking at students who carry the ADD/ADHD mark as having a "deficit", Armstrong, instead, presents a more positive and holistic view that validates these learners for who they truly are.
If any of these books contain a flaw, it is ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the classroom. Here, the author stumbles severely in his treatment of the role MI can have on ADD/ADHD classroom students. Unlike his previous books on MI, Armstrong devotes sparse attention, a meager two pages, to possible MI intervention strategies. Although he comments "that the most powerful---and exciting---application of MI theory involves teaching it to students" (p. 61), additional comments fail to outline specific classroom strategies. Moreover, he should have explained in greater detail alternative assessment techniques. To fill this void, I would suggest that after reading ADD/ADHD Alternatives in the classroom, you might wish to click here to go to the MI section of Armstrong's web site. There, you will find additional articles and commentaries more applicable to MI and the ADHD child.
Nevertheless, the authors of the four books under review are to be commended for their comprehensive comments on nurturing students' intelligence strengths. All of the books view Multiple Intelligence learning to be a matter of taking hold of the world's wealth of knowledge and presenting it to students \ in a comprehensive, multi-dimensional scheme that is comfortable and creative for them and, most important, teaches them forever. Taken together as a whole, the four above books advocate practical strategies for reducing or (possibly) eliminating achievement gaps between all types of learners. Moreover, they provide teachers and school administrators with new insights for developing a MI learning environment. These books are a must read for all who are interested in MI schooling.
Ordering Information
To order any of the above books, contact the publisher, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), directly, at 1703 Beauregard, Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22311-1714 USA. Their telephone numbers are: 1-800-933-2723 or 703-578 9600. Their fax number is 703-575-5400 and their email address is member@ascd.org. And to view their website, click here.
3 Encouraging performances of understanding by Howard GardnerExcerpted with the author's permission from
Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century
Basic Books, 1999Obstacles to understanding are ubiquitous and cannot be averted readily. Moreover, misunderstandings are inevitable as long as people succumb to the temptation to "cover everything" – for instance, in a course on Western history to go from Plato to NATO in thirty-six weeks. Nonetheless, in recent years, four promising approaches to understanding have evolved, and each recognizes the obstacles and seeks to inculcate more productive performances of understanding. I will mention three briefly and then turn to the fourth and featured approach: the use of MI theory to enhance student understanding.
Observational Approaches
The first approach involves observing and applying the practices of institutions that have successfully inculcated understanding. The traditional institution of the apprenticeship is one example. Young apprentices spend much time with a master practitioner, observe him up close, and gradually engage in the daily practice of problem solving and product making. The contemporary institution of the children's museum or the science museum is another exemplary way to mold understanding (see chapter 11). Students have the opportunity to approach intriguing phenomena in ways that make sense to them, they can take their time, and they face no test pressures. More important, they may bring issues with them from home to school, to the museum, and back again—gradually constructing sturdier understandings by using multiple inputs (and multiple ways of reacting to those inputs) in diverse settings. In learning how these institutions have generated deeper understandings, we receive clues about how best to teach for understanding.
Confrontational Approaches
A second approach features frontal tackling of the obstacles to understanding. One comes to grips directly with one's own misconceptions. For example, if a person believes in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, he can cut off the tails of generations of salamanders and see whether a shorter-tailed salamander gradually (or abruptly) emerges. If another person regularly invokes memorized algorithms to solve problems, she can be given the opportunity to construct her own mathematical formula thorough experimentation with relevant (and irrelevant) variables. And if someone else habitually engages in stereotypical thinking, he can be encouraged to consider each historical event or work of art from multiple perspectives. Note, however, that none of these is foolproof; moreover, occasionally adopting "multiple perspectives" or challenging misconceptions will not suffice. Teachers need to encourage understandings by pointing out inadequate conceptualizations and asking students to reflect on the consequences. Students gradually learn to monitor their own intuitive theories and thus cultivate habits of understanding.
A Systematic approach: Teaching for Understanding
In collaboration with the educational researchers David Perkins, Vito Perrone, Stone Wiske, and others, I have developed a third, more systematic approach to the problem, Teaching for Understanding, which features an explicitly performing stance. Teachers are asked to state explicit understanding goals, stipulate the correlated performances of understanding, and share these perspectives with the students. Other key features of this "understanding framework" include a stressing of generative topics that are both central to the discipline and attractive to students (for example, Why are there fourteen varieties of finches on the Galapagos Islands? When and how was the "Final Solution" arrived at?); identifying "through-lines" that permeate a unit or course (for example, how to go from an observation to a hypothesis and back again to fresh observations that will ultimately yield further hypotheses); and assessing students' understandings not simply at the end of the course, but through regular, interim "practice" performances.
I have suggested that understanding is a generic problem with generic solutions. It is important for students to understand, the achievement of understanding is challenging, and there are a variety of means that might aid students. A generic approach would seem justifiable, since it is reasonable to approach a problem in terms of its fundamental constituents. Certain tacks might in fact prove successful with all students, or at least the vast majority. But as I've now established, human minds do not all work in the same way, and human beings do not have the same cognitive strengths and weaknesses. Knowing this should strongly influence how we teach students and how we assess what they learn. We all possess the same ensemble of intelligences—in one sense, they represent our species' intellectual heritage—but we do not exhibit equal strengths or similar profiles. Some people are strong in one intelligence and weak in others, and strength in a particular intelligence does not necessarily predict strength (or weakness) in others.
As I've pointed out, many educators see MI theory as an end in itself. That is, a school or program is meritorious to the extent that it extols MI ideas or measures students' intelligences or features the intelligences in curriculum or pedagogy. But enhancing "multiple intelligences" is not in itself a suitable goal of education. Rather, it is better thought of as a handmaiden to good education, once educational goals have been established on independent grounds. Indeed, I would argue that MI is most usefully invoked in the service of two educational goals. The first is to help students achieve certain valued adult roles or end-states. If one wants everyone to be able to engage in artistic activities, it makes sense to develop linguistic intelligence (for the poet), spatial intelligence (for the graphic artist or sculptor), bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (for the dancer), and musical intelligence (for the composer or performer). If one wants everyone to be civil, then it is important to develop the personal intelligences.
The second goal—and the one most relevant to this chapter—is to help students master certain curricular or disciplinary materials. Given that, students might be encouraged to take a course in biology, so as to better understand the origins and development of the living world, and to study history, so as to better understand people's plans, actions, and consequences in the past. One could take the position that everyone should study the same thing in the same way and be assessed in the same way. The standard view of intelligence leads readily, perhaps ineluctably, to that educational course. Yet, if there is validity to the idea of multiple intelligences—if individuals indeed have different kinds of minds, with varied strengths, interests, and strategies—then it is worth considering whether pivotal curricular materials could be taught and assessed in a variety of ways.
4 Multiple Intelligences at a community college by Joyce Ksicinski and Rex SinclairHoward Gardner's Multiple Intelligences (MI) Theory and Branton Shearer's Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS) instrument were the basis for two different studies in 1999 and 2000 at the College of the Redwoods (CR). Dr. Ksicinski began this research for her successfully submitted dissertation, “Assessment of a Remedial Community College Cohort for Multiple Intelligences” towards completion of an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from the University of La Verne. The research continues via a California Funds for Instructional Improvement grant, expanding upon the initial study to a larger group, from 81 participants to the current level of 294.
CR is a rural community college located beyond the “Redwood Curtain” in NW California. Approximately half of CR's students enter at an assessed remedial level versus transfer-ready. Although these descriptions are not mutually exclusive, we retain them for this study. Many remedial students are re-entry to an academic atmosphere. The younger, transfer students are typically recent graduates from local high schools.
Gardner says, "I discourage efforts to characterize…because this picture is fluid and changing", in his introduction to "Frames of Mind" (Tenth Edition, Basic Books, 1993 p. xxii). However, he supports alternative means of instruction. The researchers began by looking for statistically significant differences in the eight MI between the transfer and remedial cohort as well as between the instructors and students. We hoped to discover clues to possible means of raising the remedial group towards the transfer skill level using the MIDAS instrument.
Although the expanded study is still in process, preliminary data are surfacing some expected results. That is, males are rating themselves higher in Kinesthetic than females. Transfer students have higher mean scores in Linguistics than the remedial cohort. The data collection in the fall 2000 term will enable a more robust analysis of disaggregated data according to the moderator variables of age, gender, and ethnicity. However, there is a preliminary finding that invites speculation because of its tantalizing possibility.
In Dr. Ksicinski’s original work, the highest paired correlation of the eight intelligences lay between the Intrapersonal and the Logical-Mathematical scales. Statistician and CR Mathematics instructor, Mr. Sinclair, found that this correlation remains strong in the expanded study involving the two groups. Test of differences between the Intrapersonal and Logical-Mathematical scales shows a significance at 99% confidence level. Anecdotal material also suggests that self-confidence and success in mathematics coincide. These data seem to support this notion, and a possible cross-discipline intervention scheme. We postulate that improving our remedial student's self-awareness and confidence would improve their mathematical ability. An experimental study could engage some students in diary keeping, meditation, and similar self-awareness methods while others would follow traditional paths.
A community college fits the mold of Dr. Gardner's “uniform schooling”; therefore, cross-disciplinary changes remain hypothetical. Other areas of investigation will correlate MIDAS results with Grade Point Averages and results from the classes where we used the MIDAS. We are not trying to change future ballet dancers into mathematicians; however, remedial math classes begin at whole number study. Everyone would agree such competence is mandatory in society today. These issues warrant further study and consideration.
For additional information about the above study, please contact the authors at the following locations:
Joyce Ksicinski, Ed.D.
College of the Redwoods
7351 Tompkins Hill Road
Eureka CA 95501
707.476.4274
joyce-ksicinski@eureka.redwoods.cc.ca.usRex S. Sinclair
College of the Redwoods
7351 Tompkins Hill Road
Eureka CA 95501
707.476.4100 ext. 4839
rex-sinclair@eureka.redwoods.cc.ca.us or
rsinclair@wcinet.net
5 For your intelligences only by Clifford MorrisTo repeat a comment that I have often made in past issues of this newsletter but perhaps of interest for first time readers, since 1985, I have been quite interested in the writings of Howard Gardner, especially his work on Multiple Intelligences (MI) not because we were born in the same year but because both of us seek alternative ways of looking at the psychological construct 'intelligence.'
Over these years, I have enjoyed collected much information on him and his "claim to fame" theory -- his notion that all human beings possess "many kinds of minds." This interest commenced when I was a practicing classroom teacher and a graduate student. At that time, I involved Gardner's hypothesis for my graduate school research assignments, and, perhaps more importantly, as 'entry points' into the many different kinds of minds of my special education students. Having recently retired from the daily duties of daybooks, report cards, and staff meetings, my interest in MI continues, but now in the form of a hobby.
My most recent hobby, or collection includes the gathering up of various doctoral dissertations abstracts on those who have successfully incorporated the Gardner MI model into their thesis. As soon as I receive publication permission from ProQuest Digital Dissertaions (PQDD), I shall publish them in the MI-News. In the interim, here are a few comments about PQDD.
About ProQuest Digital Dissertations Services
To cite directly from the homepage of ProQuest Digital Dissertations (PQDD), they are "the single, authoritative source for information about doctoral dissertations and master's theses." The database "contains more than 1.6 million entries ... represent[ing] the work of authors from over 1,000 graduate schools and universities. Approximately 47,000 new dissertations and 12,000 new theses to the database each year."
This database "includes bibliographic citations for materials ranging from the first U.S. dissertation, accepted in 1861, to those accepted as recently as last semester. Citations for dissertations published from 1980 forward also include 350-word abstracts written by the author…The full text of more than one million of these titles is available in paper and microform formats. Institutional subscribers to ProQuest Digital Dissertations receive on-line access to the complete file of dissertations in digital format starting with titles published from 1997 forward."
For information on purchasing the full-text copies of a dissertation for any of the following eight abstracts, contact UMI, a Bell & Howell Information Company, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Their telephone number is 1-800-521-0600, extension 3042. If you reside outside of the United States, or in Canada, call 1-734-761-4700, extension 3042. Click here to go to UMI's website.
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home | updated by Clifford Morris on 9.9.01