Teaching Gardner’s multiple Intelligences Theory as a tool for differentiation: Intelligence for opening doors

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences (MI)  Need for innovation  New approaches to teaching psychology –Propose MI as useful tool  Existing cognitive theory  Provides a useful framework for differentiation to accommodate learner diversity

Importance…….  Not determined by acceptance of Gardner's definition of intelligence  Defined by the usefulness of MI for teaching effectively and meeting student needs  Proposed that Gardner's psychological framework transcends discipline content  It may be effectively used to teach psychology

The purposes of the case study  To examine the reactions, responses and results of 98 tertiary post graduate students –completing their pre service teacher training – when required to incorporate Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory into their plans to support the learning of primary aged students in classroom mathematics activities – to showcase the potential of Gardner’ psychological framework to applied work in the school context.  Secondly, to explore the potential of the MI framework to support the effective teaching of psychology.

Students were required to…..  Identify own relative strengths and limitations as learners  Become aware of their preferred ways of learning new processes and content  Engage with student profiles sourced from real classroom cohorts of pupils and design tasks and strategies to meet learner needs  Critique and justify views on appropriateness of tasks already designed for these pupils

Continued……..  Generate HOT questions for group discussion relating to prescribed book of readings and text  Maintain reflective learning journals for the duration of the course  Design interactive concrete materials to support pupil learning, drawing heavily on their own relative strengths

Results  Students –Demonstrated increased knowledge of the discipline content and the learning process –Acquired an understanding of learner diversity and an improved capacity to cater for learner differences –Developed a strong sense of collegiality –In turn, this resulted in improved grades, greater student satisfaction with the course and increased sense of student competency

The Framework..  Gave students opportunities to… –Know themselves as learners and use their relative strengths to support new learning –Have strategies to learn new processes and content –Solve problems related to real cohorts of students –Evaluate tasks and strategies using own criteria (developed by students themselves)

 Understand and apply the cognitive processes described in the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy as analysing and evaluating (critical thinking)  Engage in reflective practice to inform learning (describe, analyse, plan)  Create materials to support professional practice.  Put theory into practice…….