Howard Gardner's Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
Bodily kinesthetic Musical Naturalist Introduction Interpersonal Intrapersonal Linguistic Logical mathematical intelligence is all about using numbers effectively, improving inductive and deductive reasoning skills, and being able to appreciate, recognize, and use abstract patterns in problem solving situations. Many mainstream psychologists continue to consider this intelligence, in conjunction with Gardner's linguistic-verbal intelligence, as the only form of smarts. This (Jean) Piagetian-type ability that intellectual quotient (IQ) tests purport to measure, deals with inductive and deductive thinking, numbers, and patterns.
As young children, such students are always asking how things work; they learn to count easily. They enjoy working with manipulatives, puzzles, categorizing activities, and working on timelines. Over the years, I have had many such learners in my classes. They think conceptually and abstractly, and are often able to see patterns and relationships that ordinary students miss. They like to experiment, solve puzzles and other problems, ask cosmic questions; in short, they tend to be the classroom thinkers. They generally enjoy working with numbers, mathematical formulae and operations, continuously appreciating the challenge of a complex problem to solve. They tend to be systematic and analytical, and they always have a logical rationale or argument for what they are doing or thinking.
During their middle years of school, they enjoy creating their own word problems and logic games. An example of a mathematical problem based on real life interests might involve costing out the possibility of keeping a house pet for a year. As older children, they often become quite skilled at many areas of mathematics, calculus, and science, perhaps even creating an hypothesis for the development of a new invention. Students at this age also enjoy puzzles and recognize patterns in the world around them. Three such likely groups of professionals, or to coin Gardner's term, "end states", who are best able to use and appreciate such abstract relationships are chemists, microbiologists, and technologists. The mathematician Albert Einstein had a lot of this intelligence.
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