Multiple Intelligences in Teacher Training

Rosie Tanner

"Spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count " Rabbit. The World of Pooh. A. A. Milne.

Puzzle

My nearly two-year-old son plays a lot with puzzles and building blocks, working out for himself where the pieces fit together. His second favourite activity at the moment is clambering about the furniture (the sofa, the bed, the steps) and jumping off, though he hasn't quite yet got the idea of bending his knees at the right moment when he lands. He also likes "reading" picture books and naming objects, animals or actions that he sees: "moon", "elephant", "sleeping". When he meets a special friend they run up and down and shriek in delight because they are together; five minutes later, she pushes him over because he stole her toy - and then he cries in utter despair. Which of his Multiple Intelligences is he developing in each situation?

MI Theory

I started reading about Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence (MI) theory' (Gardner 1993) about a year ago. Gardner believes that we each possess eight or more intelligences which function together as a whole - he has named Musical, Bodily- Kinaesthetic, Logical-Mathematical, Linguistic, Spatial, Interpersonal, Intrapemnal, Naturalistic "intelligences" - and I find this theory very appealing and convincing; I wanted to do something practical with it in my own work. Last year, I was teaching on a four-year initial teacher training course for secondary school teachers; in this article, I shall introduce you to how I tried to put MI theory into practice when evaluating trainees on two Methodology courses and share some of those trainees' reactions.

What I did

I decided to work with MI theory when assessing two of my teacher trainees' Methodology courses: they are evaluated for these courses by a series of assignments in a file. At the start of the courses, when I gave out their assignments, I introduced Multiple Intelligence theory by explaining it briefly to them and giving them a handout (from Jack, Hopper and Chamberlain 1996). I provided them with seven assignments; each trainee was required to do four out of the seven.

I tried to devise each of the seven assignments so that it would basically appeal to one of the seven intelligences. This in itself was difficult, for two reasons. Firstly, my ability to create reasonable assignments seemed to depend on my own stronger and weaker intelligences. And secondly, the intelligences are, of course, not discrete, but are linked and function together, so I now realise that an effort to design separate assignments for each intelligence is probably fruitless!

THREE MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE ASSIGNMENTS

Assignment A: Intrapersonal

(i) Obtain and photocopy two pieces of student writing i.e. original work from real pupils at school. Explain briefly what the students' writing tasks were.

(ii) On each piece of writing, give some feedback as if you were the pupil's teacher. Include both feedback about the content of the writing and the language and be as specific as possible (Example of specific feedback on content: Your little brother sounds awful; mine is too. What else does he do?')

(iii) Write a few paragraphs on what kind of feedback you find most useful on your own writing as a student and relate this to your work as a teacher: what is the ideal sort of feedback for written work?

(iv) Look back at your feedback to your two students and write a few paragraphs explaining why you responded the way you did. These hints might help you:

o What colour did you use? Why?

o How did you indicate language errors?

o Why did you choose that way of indicating them? (etc.)

Assignment B. Interpersonal

Do this assignment in pairs, but each include a copy of your assignment in your file and state who you worked with.

(i) Together, write two realistic (but different) case studies about problems in teaching speaking. Your case studies should be based on your own teaching experience and should each be about 200 words.

(ii) Discuss with your partner and then write down possible ways to help solve these problems; provide at least FOUR alternative possible solutions and reasons for your solutions.

Assignment C: Spatial

(i) Make a collage on A3 size paper or cardboard that summarise your ideas about teaching speaking. Include anything you like about teaching speaking on your collage (pictures, statements, quotes, ideas, cartoons) - use your imagination.

(ii) Write a few paragraphs explaining the elements of your collage: why did you include what you did?

Why I did it

The reasons that I gave my trainees seven MI assignments were:

1 . To offer trainees the choice of assignments; in this way I felt I was letting trainees work in their own way, using their own learning styles. Students could choose an assignment based on a strong intelligence of theirs in order to perform well, or based on a weaker one in order to strengthen that intelligence.

2. To model how to put the theory into practice; I hoped it might rub off on them a bit in their own teaching, i.e. that they would try to appeal to the seven intelligences in their own classrooms.

3. To introduce MI theory to my trainees.