Wednesday, June 9, 2010
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Do you think Multiple Intelligences (MI) help teachers while doing an activity in the lesson?
Do teachers react to "multiple intelligences"? Effects of teachers' stereotypes on judgments and expectancies for students with diverse patterns of giftedness/talent.
Why Has Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences Had So Little Impact on Vocational Psychology?
Do you think that it is effective for a student to know about his/her NLP strenght?
Is it right to classify students according to their ability or interest in any area without taking care of their need?
QUESTIONNAIRE
MULTİPLE INTELLİGENCES – HOW ARE YOU SMART?
Which of the intelligences do you favour? What are your strengths?
By answering the following questions you will be able to gauge which forms of intelligence are your strongest—and weakest. This will enable you to focus on making sure you make the most of your existing abilities and—if you so desire—see if you can develop some of the others.
Let us emphasize that most of us have a mixed portfolio of intelligences and that there is no purpose in trying to simply label someone as a ‘logical-mathematical’ type or a ‘bodily-
kinesthetic’ type. The checklist is designed to help you develop a fuller appreciation of the
intelligences you enjoy.
Check each statement which applies to you and add the totals.
Linguistic
1. You enjoy word play. Making puns, tongue-twisters, limericks.
2. You read everything—books, magazines, newspapers, even product labels.
3. You can easily express yourself either orally or in writing, i.e. you’re a good story-teller or writer.
4. You pepper your conversation with frequent allusions to things you've read or heard.
5. You like to do crosswords, play Scrabble or have a go at other word puzzles.
6. People sometimes have to ask you to explain a word you’ve used.
7. In school you preferred subjects such as English, history and social studies.
8. You can hold your own in verbal arguments or debates.
9. You like to talk through problems, explain solutions, ask questions.
10. You can readily absorb information from the radio or audio cassettes.
TOTAL:
Logical-Mathematical
1. You enjoy working with numbers and can do mental calculations.
2. You’re interested in new scientific advances.
3. You can easily balance your cheque book; do the household budget.
4. You like to put together a detailed itinerary for vacations or business trips.
5. You enjoy the challenge of brain teasers or other puzzles that require logical thinking.
6. You tend to find the logical flaws in things people say and do.
7. Math and science were among your favourite subjects in school.
8. You can find specific examples to support a general point of view.
9. You take a systematic, step-by-step approach to problem-solving.
10. You need to categorize, group or quantify things to properly appreciate their relevance.
TOTAL:
Visual-Spatial
1. You have an appreciation of the arts.
2. You tend to make a visual record of events with a camera or camcorder.
3. You find yourself doodling when taking notes or thinking through something.
4. You have no problem reading maps and navigating.
5. You enjoy visual games such as jigsaw puzzles and mazes.
6. You’re quite adept at taking things apart and putting them back together.
7. In school you liked lessons in art and preferred geometry to algebra.
8. You often make your point by providing a diagram or drawing.
9. You can visualize how things look from a different perspective.
10. You prefer reading material that is heavily illustrated.
TOTAL:
Bodily-Kinesthetic
1. You take part in a sport or regularly perform some kind of physical exercise.
2. You’re quite adept at ‘do-it-yourself.’
3. You like to think through problems while engaged in a physical pursuit such as walking or running.
4. You don’t mind getting up on the dance floor.
5. You like the most thrilling rides at the fun fair.
6. You need to physically handle something to fully understand it.
7. The most enjoyable classes in school were PE and any handicrafts lessons.
8. You use hand gestures or other kinds of body language to express yourself.
9. You like rough and tumble play with children.
10. You need to tackle a new learning experience ‘hands on’ rather than reading a manual or watching a video.
TOTAL:
Musical
1. You can play a musical instrument.
2. You can manage to sing on key.
3. Usually, you can remember a tune after hearing it just a couple of times.
4. You often listen to music at home and in your car.
5. You find yourself tapping in time to music.
6. You can identify different musical instruments.
7. Theme music or commercial jingles often pop into your head.
8. You can’t imagine life without music.
9. You often whistle or hum a tune.
10. You like a musical background when you’re working.
TOTAL:
Interpersonal
1. You enjoy working with other people as part of a group or committee.
2. You take great pride in being a mentor to someone else.
3. People tend to come to you for advice.
4. You prefer team sports—such as basketball, softball, soccer, football—to individual sports such as swimming and running.
5. You like games involving other people—bridge, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit.
6. You’re a social butterfly. You would much prefer to be at a party rather than home alone watching television.
7. You have several very close personal friends.
8. You communicate well with people and can help resolve disputes.
9. You have no hesitation in taking the lead; showing other people how to get things done.
10. You talk over problems with others rather than trying to resolve them by yourself.
TOTAL:
Intrapersonal
1. You keep a personal diary or log to record your innermost thoughts.
2. You often spend ‘quiet time’ reflecting on the important issues in your life.
3. You have set your own goals—you know where you’re going.
4. You are an independent thinker—you know your own mind, make up your own mind.
5. You have a private hobby or interest which you don’t really share with anyone else.
6. You like to go fishing by yourself or take a solitary hike. You’re happy with your own company.
7. Your idea of a good vacation is an isolated hilltop cabin rather than a five-star resort and lots of people.
8. You have a realistic idea of your own strengths and weaknesses.
9. You have attended self-improvement workshops or been through some kind of counselling to learn more about yourself.
10. You work for yourself—or have seriously contemplated ‘doing your own thing.’
TOTAL:
Naturalist
1. You keep or like pets.
2. You can recognize and name many different types of trees, flowers and plants.
3. You have an interest in and good knowledge of how the body works—where the main internal organs are, for example, and you keep abreast on health issues.
4. You are conscious of tracks, nests and wildlife while on a walk and can ‘read’ weather signs.
5. You could envision yourself as a farmer or maybe you like to fish.
6. You are a keen gardener.
7. You have an understanding of, and interest in, the main global environmental issues.
8. You keep reasonably informed about developments in astronomy, the origins of the universe and the evolution of life.
9. You are interested in social issues, psychology and human motivations.
10. You consider that conservation of resources and achieving sustainable growth are two of the biggest issues of our times.
TOTAL:
Compare the totals from all eight intelligences and you will readily see your greatest strengths
and weaknesses. The higher your score, the more you favour that particular
intelligence.
Friday, May 14, 2010
NLP
What is NLP?
NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a name that encompasses the three most influential components involved in producing human experience: neurology, language and programming. The neurological system regulates how our bodies function, language determines how we interface and communicate with other people and our programming determines the kinds of models of the world we create. Neuro-Linguistic Programming describes the fundamental dynamics between mind (neuro) and language (linguistic) and how their interplay effects our body and behavior (programming).
NLP is a pragmatic school of thought - an 'epistemology' - that addresses the many levels involved in being human. NLP is a multi-dimensional process that involves the development of behavioral competence and flexibility, but also involves strategic thinking and an understanding of the mental and cognitive processes behind behavior. NLP provides tools and skills for the development of states of individual excellence, but it also establishes a system of empowering beliefs and presuppositions about what human beings are, what communication is and what the process of change is all about. At another level, NLP is about self-discovery, exploring identity and mission. It also provides a framework for understanding and relating to the 'spiritual' part of human experience that reaches beyond us as individuals to our family, community and global systems. NLP is not only about competence and excellence, it is about wisdom and vision.
In essence, all of NLP is founded on two fundamental presuppositions:
1. The Map is Not the Territory. As human beings, we can never know reality. We can only know our perceptions of reality. We experience and respond to the world around us primarily through our sensory representational systems. It is our 'neuro-linguistic' maps of reality that determine how we behave and that give those behaviors meaning, not reality itself. It is generally not reality that limits us or empowers us, but rather our map of reality.
2. Life and 'Mind' are Systemic Processes. The processes that take place within a human being and between human beings and their environment are systemic. Our bodies, our societies, and our universe form an ecology of complex systems and sub-systems all of which interact with and mutually influence each other. It is not possible to completely isolate any part of the system from the rest of the system. Such systems are based on certain 'self-organizing' principles and naturally seek optimal states of balance or homeostasis.
All of the models and techniques of NLP are based on the combination of these two principles. In the belief system of NLP it is not possible for human beings to know objective reality. Wisdom, ethics and ecology do not derive from having the one 'right' or 'correct' map of the world, because human beings would not be capable of making one. Rather, the goal is to create the richest map possible that respects the systemic nature and ecology of ourselves and the world we live in. The people who are most effective are the ones who have a map of the world that allows them to perceive the greatest number of available choices and perspectives. NLP is a way of enriching the choices that you have and perceive as available in the world around you. Excellence comes from having many choices. Wisdom comes from having multiple perspectives.
NLP was originated by John Grinder (whose background was in linguistics) and Richard Bandler (whose background was in mathematics and gestalt therapy) for the purpose of making explicit models of human excellence. Their first work The Structure of Magic Vol. I & II (1975, 1976) identified the verbal and behavioral patterns of therapists Fritz Perls (the creator of gestalt therapy) and Virginia Satir (internationally renowned family therapist). Their next work Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Vol. I & II (1975, 1976) examined the verbal and behavioral patterns of Milton Erickson, founder of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and one of the most widely acknowledged and clinically successful psychiatrists of our times. As a result of this earlier work, Grinder and Bandler formalized their modeling techniques and their own individual contributions under the name "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" to symbolize the relationship between the brain, language and the body. The basics of this model has been described in a series of books including Frogs Into Princes (Bandler & Grinder, 1979 ) , Neuro-Linguistic Programming Vol. I Reframing (Bandler & Grinder, 1982) and Using Your Brain (Bandler, 1985). Through the years, NLP has developed some very powerful tools and skills for communication and change in a wide range of professional areas including: counseling, psychotherapy, education, health, creativity, law, management, sales, leadership and parenting. (Dilts, Grinder, Bandler, DeLozier, 1980),
Multiple Intelligence Types
What is Multiple Intelligence?
Conceived by Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences are seven different ways to demonstrate intellectual ability.
What are the types of Multiple Intelligence?
ability to perceive the visual. These learners tend to think in pictures and need to create vivid mental images to retain information. They enjoy looking at maps, charts, pictures, videos, and movies.
Their skills include:
puzzle building, reading, writing, understanding charts and graphs, a good sense of direction, sketching, painting, creating visual metaphors and analogies (perhaps through the visual arts), manipulating images, constructing, fixing, designing practical objects, interpreting visual images.
Possible career interests:
navigators, sculptors, visual artists, inventors, architects, interior designers, mechanics, engineers
ability to use words and language. These learners have highly developed auditory skills and are generally elegant speakers. They think in words rather than pictures.
Their skills include:
listening, speaking, writing, story telling, explaining, teaching, using humor, understanding the syntax and meaning of words, remembering information, convincing someone of their point of view, analyzing language usage.
Possible career interests:
Poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, translator
ability to use reason, logic and numbers. These learners think conceptually in logical and numerical patterns making connections between pieces of information. Always curious about the world around them, these learner ask lots of questions and like to do experiments.
Their skills include:
problem solving, classifying and categorizing information, working with abstract concepts to figure out the relationship of each to the other, handling long chains of reason to make local progressions, doing controlled experiments, questioning and wondering about natural events, performing complex mathematical calculations, working with geometric shapes
Possible career paths:
Scientists, engineers, computer programmers, researchers, accountants, mathematicians
ability to control body movements and handle objects skillfully. These learners express themselves through movement. They have a good sense of balance and eye-hand co-ordination. (e.g. ball play, balancing beams). Through interacting with the space around them, they are able to remember and process information.
Their skills include:
dancing, physical co-ordination, sports, hands on experimentation, using body language, crafts, acting, miming, using their hands to create or build, expressing emotions through the body
Possible career paths:
Athletes, physical education teachers, dancers, actors, firefighters, artisans
ability to produce and appreciate music. These musically inclined learners think in sounds, rhythms and patterns. They immediately respond to music either appreciating or criticizing what they hear. Many of these learners are extremely sensitive to environmental sounds (e.g. crickets, bells, dripping taps).
Their skills include:
singing, whistling, playing musical instruments, recognizing tonal patterns, composing music, remembering melodies, understanding the structure and rhythm of music
Possible career paths:
musician, disc jockey, singer, composer
ability to relate and understand others. These learners try to see things from other people's point of view in order to understand how they think and feel. They often have an uncanny ability to sense feelings, intentions and motivations. They are great organizers, although they sometimes resort to manipulation. Generally they try to maintain peace in group settings and encourage co-operation.They use both verbal (e.g. speaking) and non-verbal language (e.g. eye contact, body language) to open communication channels with others.
Their skills include:
seeing things from other perspectives (dual-perspective), listening, using empathy, understanding other people's moods and feelings, counseling, co-operating with groups, noticing people's moods, motivations and intentions, communicating both verbally and non-verbally, building trust, peaceful conflict resolution, establishing positive relations with other people.
Possible Career Paths:
Counselor, salesperson, politician, business person
ability to self-reflect and be aware of one's inner state of being. These learners try to understand their inner feelings, dreams, relationships with others, and strengths and weaknesses.
Their Skills include:
Recognizing their own strengths and weaknesses, reflecting and analyzing themselves, awareness of their inner feelings, desires and dreams, evaluating their thinking patterns, reasoning with themselves, understanding their role in relationship to others
Possible Career Paths:
Researchers, theorists, philosophers
Multiple Intelligences and NPL
Howard Gardner on Multiple Intelligences - The Initial Listing
Howard Gardner viewed intelligence as 'the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting' (Gardner & Hatch, 1989). He reviewed the literature using eight criteria or 'signs' of an intelligence:Potential isolation by brain damage.The existence of idiots savants, prodigies and other exceptional individuals.
An identifiable core operation or set of operations.
A distinctive development history, along with a definable set of 'end-state' performances.
An evolutionary history and evolutionary plausibility.
Support from experimental psychological tasks.
Support from psychometric findings.
Susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system. (Howard Gardner 1983: 62-69)
Candidates for the title 'an intelligence' had to satisfy a range of these criteria and must include, as a prerequisite, the ability to resolve 'genuine problems or difficulties' (ibid.: 60) within certain cultural settings. Making judgements about this was, however, 'reminiscent more of an artistic judgement than of a scientific assessment' (ibid.: 62).
Howard Gardner initially formulated a list of seven intelligences. His listing was provisional. The first two have been typically valued in schools; the next three are usually associated with the arts; and the final two are what Howard Gardner called 'personal intelligences' (Gardner 1999: 41-43).
Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals. This intelligence includes the ability to effectively use language to express oneself rhetorically or poetically; and language as a means to remember information. Writers, poets, lawyers and speakers are among those that Howard Gardner sees as having high linguistic intelligence.
Logical-mathematical intelligence consists of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically. In Howard Gardner's words, it entails the ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think logically. This intelligence is most often associated with scientific and mathematical thinking.
Musical intelligence involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns. It encompasses the capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches, tones, and rhythms. According to Howard Gardner musical intelligence runs in an almost structural parallel to linguistic intelligence.
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. It is the ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements. Howard Gardner sees mental and physical activity as related.
Spatial intelligence involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas.
Interpersonal intelligence is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. It allows people to work effectively with others. Educators, salespeople, religious and political leaders and counsellors all need a well-developed interpersonal intelligence.
Intrapersonal intelligence entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations. In Howard Gardner's view it involves having an effective working model of ourselves, and to be able to use such information to regulate our lives.
In Frames of Mind Howard Gardner treated the personal intelligences 'as a piece'. Because of their close association in most cultures, they are often linked together. However, he still argues that it makes sense to think of two forms of personal intelligence. Gardner claimed that the seven intelligences rarely operate independently. They are used at the same time and tend to complement each other as people develop skills or solve problems.
In essence Howard Gardner argued that he was making two essential claims about multiple intelligences. That:
The theory is an account of human cognition in its fullness. The intelligences provided 'a new definition of human nature, cognitively speaking' (Gardner 1999: 44). Human beings are organisms who possess a basic set of intelligences.People have a unique blend of intelligences. Howard Gardner argues that the big challenge facing the deployment of human resources 'is how to best take advantage of the uniqueness conferred on us as a species exhibiting several intelligences' (ibid.: 45).
These intelligences, according to Howard Gardner, are amoral - they can be put to constructive or destructive use.
The appeal of multiple intelligences to educators
Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences has not been readily accepted within academic psychology. However, it has met with a strongly positive response from many educators. It has been embraced by a range of educational theorists and, significantly, applied by teachers and policymakers to the problems of schooling. A number of schools in North America have looked to structure curricula according to the intelligences, and to design classrooms and even whole schools to reflect the understandings that Howard Gardner develops. The theory can also be found in use within pre-school, higher, vocational and adult education initiatives.
This appeal was not, at first, obvious.
At first blush, this diagnosis would appear to sound a death knell for formal education. It is hard to teach one intelligence; what if there are seven? It is hard to enough to teach even when anything can be taught; what to do if there are distinct limits and strong constraints on human cognition and learning? (Howard Gardner 1993: xxiii)
Howard Gardner responds to his questions by first making the point that psychology does not directly dictate education, 'it merely helps one to understand the conditions within which education takes place'. What is more:
Seven kinds of intelligence would allow seven ways to teach, rather than one. And powerful constraints that exist in the mind can be mobilized to introduce a particular concept (or whole system of thinking) in a way that children are most likely to learn it and least likely to distort it. Paradoxically, constraints can be suggestive and ultimately freeing. (op. cit.)
Mindy L. Kornhaber (2001: 276), a researcher involved with Project Zero, has identified a number of reasons why teachers and policymakers in North America have responded positively to Howard Gardner's presentation of multiple intelligences. Among these are that:
... the theory validates educators' everyday experience: students think and learn in many different ways. It also provides educators with a conceptual framework for organizing and reflecting on curriculum assessment and pedagogical practices. In turn, this reflection has led many educators to develop new approaches that might better meet the needs of the range of learners in their classrooms.
The response to Howard Gardner is paralleled by the adoption of Kolb's model of experiential learning by adult and informal educators. While significant criticism can be made of the formulation (see below) it does provide a useful set of questions and 'rules of thumb' to help educators to think about their practice. The way in which Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences has been translated into policy and practice has been very varied. Howard Gardner did not, initially, spell out the implications of his theory for educators in any detail. Subsequently, he has looked more closely at what the theory might mean for schooling practice (e.g. in The Unschooled Mind, Intelligence Reframed, and The Disciplined Mind). From this work three particular aspects of Gardner's thinking need noting here as they allow for hope, and an alternative way of thinking, for those educators who feel out of step with the current, dominant product orientation to curriculum and educational policy. The approach entails:
A broad vision of education. All seven intelligences are needed to live life well. Teachers, therefore, need to attend to all intelligences, not just the first two that have been their tradition concern. As Kornhaber (2001: 276) has noted it involves educators opting 'for depth over breadth'. Understanding entails taking knowledge gained in one setting and using it in another. 'Students must have extended opportunities to work on a topic' (op. cit.).
Developing local and flexible programmes. Howard Gardner's interest in 'deep understanding', performance, exploration and creativity are not easily accommodated within an orientation to the 'delivery' of a detailed curriculum planned outside of the immediate educational context. 'An "MI setting" can be undone if the curriculum is too rigid or if there is but a single form of assessment' (Gardner 1999: 147). In this respect the educational implications of Howard Gardner's work stands in a direct line from the work of John Dewey.
Looking to morality. 'We must figure out how intelligence and morality can work together', Howard Gardner argues, 'to create a world in which a great variety of people will want to live' (Gardner 1999: 4). While there are considerable benefits to developing understanding in relation to the disciplines, something more is needed.
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