Howard Gardner

HOWARD GARDNERTHEORIST POWER POINT

Brandie Hauser

His Bio

Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A.Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at theHarvard Graduate School of Education.

In 2005 he was selected by Foreign Policy andProspect magazines as one of 100 most influentialpublic intellectuals in the world.

Gardner is best known in educational circles forhis theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there existsbut a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standardpsychometric instruments.

In his own words: Howard Gardner states: I was deeply influenced by the charismatic psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, who became my tutor in my junior and senior years, and by other scholars in the social sciences broadly construed—several of whom were of European or Jewish background and representative of the first and second wave of 1930s immigrants.

See full bio at: Howard Gardner's Bio

Howard Gardner

Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Howard asked what constitutes intelligence? He states in his book Multiple Intelligences, New Horizons: intelligence is defined operationally as the ability to answer items on tests of intelligence. Multiple Intelligence theory on the other hand, pluralizes the traditional concept. An intelligence is a computational capacity- a capacity to process a certain kind of information. He breaks these down into 8 different categories, discussed next.

8 Different categories of intelligence

Musical Intelligence Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence Logical-Mathematical Intelligence Linguistic Intelligence Spatial Intelligence Interpersonal Intelligence Intrapersonal Intelligence Naturalistic Intelligence

Breaking the Intelligence’s Down

The intelligence of music: the ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch, and timbre. Appreciation of all forms of musical expressiveness.

As stated in his book: Multiple Intelligences, Brain activity in the right hemisphere supports the theory of intelligence with musical concepts.

The ability to control one’s body movements and to handle objects skillfully.

Bodily-Kinesthetic knowledge is problem solving and so much more all in the stroke of a tennis game.

Musical IntelligenceBodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence

Breaking the Intelligence’s Down

Sensitivity to, and capacity to discern, logical or numerical patterns; ability to handle long chains of reasoning.

Certain parts of the brain are more prone to mathematical equations than other.

Sensitivity to the meaning of sounds, rhythms and meaning of words, sensitivity to the different functions of language.

Broca’s area of the brain is responsible for grammatical sentences.

Logical –Mathematical Intelligence

Linguistic Intelligence

Breaking the Intelligence’s Down

Capacities to perceive the visual-spatial world accurately and to perform transformations on one’s initial perceptions.

The posterior regions of the right cerebral cortex prove most crucial for spatial processing.

Capacities to discern and respond appropriately to the moods, temperaments, motivations, and desires of other people.

Interpersonal Intelligence builds on a core capacity to notice distinctions among others.

Spatial IntelligenceInterpersonal Intelligence

Breaking the Intelligence’s Down

Access to one’s own feelings and the ability to discriminate among them and draw on them to guide behavior; knowledge of one’s own strengths.

Abilities to recognize plants and animals, to make distinctions in the natural world, to understand systems and define categories.

Intrapersonal Intelligence

Naturalist Intelligence

Effects on Education

Howard Gardner’s effect on education has been huge. The educational community has adopted his theory and now applies it to teaching strategies all across the world. It is particularly popular in Differentiated Instruction. The book claims that there is no proof to the validity of the theory but Howard Gardner’s own books prove to have significant effects on ones ability to learn.

Three meanings of intelligence

Intelligence as a species characteristic

Intelligence and individual difference

Intelligence as fit execution of an assignment

How it relates in the classroom Gardner believes that this theory allows to

develop lessons that will accommodate the different intelligences. This is done through Differentiated Instruction, Cooperative Learning, and Problem based learning. Utilizing the different methods of teaching allows for the application of working with the different intelligences. Examples of this are designing lesson plans that hit on several intelligences to incorporate more of the student population.

Conclusion

Although this is a new theory so to speak it really hits home with the thought process that we all are born with are own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to intelligence. I believe that just the understanding of this allows for better teaching. It seems to explain why some kids just get it on certain topics and others struggle. I did find interesting in my research that all have logical and problem solving skills of some level incorporated into their definitions.

I like Howard Gardner and have gotten several of his books and plan to read them.

Works Cited

Educational Psychology by Anita Woolfolk

Multiple Intelligences, New Horizons by Howard Gardner

Learning To Teach, by Richard Arends.