MI and Education: The Connection
ASSUMING THIS ASSERTION of a multitude of intellects is indeed true, what does this mean for education? For starters, the most prevalent form of assessment in the United States involves multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank questions that have been developed from a given set of information that has been deemed worthy of being "necessary knowledge." For instance, the Revolutionary War and the birth of the United States has always been considered a necessary piece of knowledge that should be learned in primary and secondary school. While knowing about this part of U.S. is certainly worthy of inclusion for a multitude of reasons, a quick consideration of MI theory would suggest that schools are teaching the subject in an entirely inefficient way.
When students are lectured on a subject, they are overloaded with facts, statistics and other nuggets of information that are to be regurgitated at a later date in the form of some assessment test. But what does a student gain by completing the statement "________ was the English general who surrendered at the end of the War." An answer of Lord Cornwallis gives the student the good grade and the school administrators the statistics to wave around and say, "Another educational objective has been met. . . ."
What is the the traditional view of intelligence?
How has this view impacted schools historically?
What does Multiple Intelligences theory propose?
Tell me more about Howard Gardner.
Tell me more about Harvard Project Zero.
I'd like to examine other reform styles.
