We always hear people saying "X" is really intelligent. The question that strikes my mind immediately is how could you tell? The answer I get most of the times is: because he is good at math; or he is good at science. Others may say he is smart at everything. Do people really know what intelligence means? Does it really mean that you should be good at calculations, or good at "everything"?
The theory of multiple intelligence differentiates intelligence into different modalities, which means intelligence is not dominated by a single ability. You may be intelligent in one domain but not in the other. Howard Gardner has identified 9 intelligences. He explains that these differences challenge an educational system that claims that everyone can learn the same material in the same way. The implications of this theory would be that teachers should use different methods and practices. They should adhere to auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners. In the Lebanese educational system, teachers mostly rely on the auditory teaching styles and assume that all students should adapt and learn that way. On the other hand, the least used is the kinesthetic.
Taking multiple intelligences into consideration while teaching has many positive advantages such as better classroom management, more successful education, and integrating arts into history, math and English. This is why we need a change in our educational system.
multiple intelligences are very important and they allow teachers to differentiate their instructions on an individual basis however most of the times, it's hard to know the learning modality of each learner especially if the teacher is novice or hasn't been teaching a class for a long time, this is why there should be more tools for novice teachers to help them identify the learning style of each student, and hopefully it would help saving time, as you said.
ReplyDelete