Teaching Gardners multiple Intelligences Theory as a tool for differentiation:

1

• Teaching Gardners multiple Intelligences Theory
  as a tool for differentiation
• Intelligence for opening doors

2
Gardners 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

3
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

4
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 Gardners 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.

5
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

6
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

7
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

8
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)

9

• Understand and apply the cognitive processes
  described in the Revised Blooms 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.