Running head: MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

Responsive Pedagogy: Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Paul La Marra, 103399308
University of Windsor
Psychology in Education
05-80-203
Group #32

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

Responsive Pedagogy: Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligences

During the second placement I was placed at Assumption College Catholic High School and
taught grade 10 applied science, as well as a grade 12 physical education leadership class. This
paper will be focused on the experience I had in the grade 10 science class. Due to the applied
nature of the class, most of the students were not very strong academically. As well, the
classroom was equipped with various technologies, which made it easy to vary in instruction to
the students if needed.
Gardners theory of multiple intelligences allows the assessment of intelligence in various
ways Gardner (2011) states that intelligence is the potential to process information in a variation
of ways, in order to solve problems or create products that are valued in one or more cultural
settings. Gardner (1983, 1993, 2011) separates intelligences into 9 categories, linguistic, logicalmathematical, spatial, bodily kinaesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic and
existentialistic.
During the second placement at Assumption, I taught the grade 10 science class, a unit on
cells and body systems specifically. Most of the lessons contained a large amount of text.
Students were asked to fill in blanks on worksheets provided based on the lecture slides being
projected on screen. The delivery of the lesson only focused on what Gardner would suggest is
linguistic intelligence, which is the understanding and processing of spoken and word. After
giving them their first assessment, which was a written quiz, it was clear that the students in the
class struggled with linguistic intelligence. The students were also tasked with writing down
comments on how the class was going and the largest criticism was the focus on note taking. Due

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to the focus on constant note taking and fill in the blanks students were unable to use different
intelligences that they may be stronger in.
In order to assess what intelligences the students in the classroom were fluent in
attempted to create a more active learning experience for the students that contained much more
varied instruction. I changed the way I gave instruction, when notes needed to be taken by the
students they now included visuals and diagrams of organ systems on both the handouts and
lecture slides, which helped to incorporate and focus on spatial intelligence. Also, I introduced
more group activities, for example, a jigsaw activity on different body systems was designed in
order to incorporate various intelligences.
The students were put into groups of 3-4; this was done in order to assess and improve
the students interpersonal intelligence. The task was for students to research a given body
systems, digestive, cardiovascular or respiratory system and answer given questions based on
that system. The research portion was used to help further the students inquiry skills and well as
to improve their logical-mathematical intelligence. After researching their organ system, they
were tasked with building a model of the system based on their findings. The building of the
model was done to improve and assess the spatial and bodily-kinaesthetic intelligences. Finally,
to finish the activity, groups were tasked with presenting their information to the rest of the class.
This focussed on their linguistic skills, as they had to convey their main points to the rest of the
class clearly and effectively. As the practicum continued, different instructional techniques like
hands on labs, as well as further group based activities provided the students with an ability to
further improve intelligences they were already comfortable in, as well as work on intelligences
that they were weaker in. This helped the students understand the material in a more than one
way, hopefully resulting in a thorough understanding.

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Gardners theory of multiple intelligences lends itself well to the field of education. With
the development of technology that allows for the use of multimedia, it can be coupled with
Gardners theory to provide individualised educations for students. Gardners theory also
provides pluralized education as it allows teachers to reach more individuals by providing
instruction in a variety of forms, which is focused on a variety of intelligences. Also, it causes
students to understand material in different ways, using different intelligences results in more
meaningful learning. (Gardner, 2011, p.10) This theory also allows teachers to assess students
more broadly, as it incorporates more than linguistics and mathematics, but further promotes
learning though arts and athletics. (Concept to Classroom, 2004) Using multiple intelligences
allows students to show specific strengths and allows them to thrive at being sufficient at
different things. (Northern Illinois University) Gardners approach also allows for student
directed learning, as students are able to learn material in ways that they feel most comfortable
in.
There are also many issues surrounding Gardners theory. The criteria for each
intelligence are not fully formed, which results in an element of subjective judgement when
deciding what intelligence a student shows. Also, many consider the musical and bodilykinaesthetic intelligences to be considered talents and not a form of intelligence as they do not
need to adapt to life demands. (Smith, 2008) Another problem is by adopting this theory, is it
makes it difficult to compare students skills and abilities across classrooms due to the elimination
of standardized testing. (Concept to Classroom, 2004) Also this theory comes from Gardners
own intuition and reasoning which lacks empirical evidence to support it. No comprehensive
research has been done to test or further prove this theory. (Smith, 2008) Lastly, Gardner
provides no way to test for identification or measures of different intelligences. This is due to the

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worry that by testing how strong a student may be in certain intelligences, we will create
labelling of that student into certain areas. (Gardner, 2011)
In the future, it would be beneficial to start instruction with a more varied approach, one
in which is associated with various intelligences from the beginning. This will allow the tailoring
of instruction based on what areas students show the most strength in. Whatever intelligences the
students show the most comfort and strength in could be used to deliver lessons to the students.
You must build on the students strengths in order to keep the students involved in the process.
Also, Gardners theory encourages the use of using more multimedia forms of technology to
deliver a lecture. In the future using various technologies to get a lesson to the students will
allow a variation of intelligences to be covered at a time. This also allows students to have a
certain amount of input into their own learning, resulting in a more student-centred approach to
teaching.

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6
References

Concept to Classroom: Tapping into multiple intelligences - Explanation. (2004).

Retrieved January 22, 2015, from
http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index_sub4.html
Gardner, H. (1983,1993,2011). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences.
New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (2011, October 22). The Theory of Multiple Intelligences: As Psychology, As
Education, As Social Science Howard Gardner.
Howard Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligences. (n.d.). 1st ed. [ebook] Northern
Illinois University, Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center. Available at:
http://www.niu.edu/facdev/resources/guide/learning/howard_gardner_theory_multiple_intelligen
ces.pdf
Lane, Carla. (n.d.) 'Gardner's multiple intelligences', the distance learning technology
resource guide, http://www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html
Smith, Mark K. (2002, 2008) Howard Gardner and multiple intelligences, the
encyclopedia of informal education, http://www.infed.org/mobi/howard-gardner-multipleintelligences-and-education.