Multiple Intelligences in Teacher Training

Initial conclusions

What intrigues me is how many of my trainees chose the musical, spatial and bodily-kinaesthetic assignments: sixty-five out of the hundred assignments returned. What fascinates me even more is that the trainees, themselves successful students from a basically linguistical-logical- mathematical education system, studying to be English teachers, rarely chose those assignments (two logical-mathematical, eleven linguistic). There might be several reasons for this:

i) It could just be that the assignments which were not selected were too long or difficult compared with the others;

ii) My own logical-mathematical intelligence is definitely my weakest, which could be reflected in the assignments I created, thus making them somehow less attractive;

iii) The trainees themselves actually do have stronger intelligences in the areas that they chose;

iv) The trainees were bored by doing more of the same old thing so chose the more creative assignments;

v) The more popular assignments were actually more of a mixture of several intelligences combined, so appealed to more students.

Conclusion

I am pretty new to Multiple Intelligence Theory and its practical applications to teaching and teacher education, but thinking through these assignments and especially reading my trainees' reactions to them prompts me to want to learn and apply these ideas some more. At least now my students are reflecting on and talking about multiple intelligences. And I have learnt to think about designing assignments in a broader, more creative way.

P.S.

Is there anyone else in the TD SIG who is experimenting with MI Theory and who would like to share their ideas?

References

Jack, Barbara, Brenda Hopper and Val Chamberlain. 1996. Moving on MI Way: A guide to multiple intelligences in the secondary school. Centre for the Promotion of Holistic Education, Edge Hill University College, St Helen's Road, Ormskirk, Lanes. L39 4QP. UK.

Gardner, Howard. 1993. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York: BasieBooks. ISBN 0-465- 01821-1. This is Gardner's book on the applications of MI the" to education.

Thanks to ...

... Catherine Green, Dubravka Knezie, Brenda Hopper and especially Julian Edge for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Rosie Tanner is the TD SIG Newsletter Co-ordinator and a teacher trainer at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

From IATEFL issues of the Teacher Development SIG Newsletter

Newsletter 34, 1997 pages 16-21