Gardner's Eight Frames of Mind
Howard Gardner, an American psychologist, essentially came up with an explanation for the phrase, “He’s not book smart, but boy can that kid fix an engine.” Gardner’s Eight Frames of Mind is a theory that we all have, contained within us somewhere, intelligence for a span of things, just that some are stronger than others. These “eight multiple intelligences” include verbal, mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, intrapersonal and naturalist. In each of these intelligences, there lie strong points to someone and weak points for others.
· Verbal- the ability to use language and words to communicate and to express thoughts and insights
· Mathematical- thinking in a way to explain mathematical operations.
· Spatial- these are the people that think concretely, more with physical elements and objects.
· Bodily-kinesthetic- the body knowledge to be physically proficient and operate objects.
· Musical- a developed ear to musical elements such at pitch, melody, rhythm or tone.
· Intrapersonal- an ease of understanding an appropriate way to interact with others effective and efficiently
· Naturalist- seeing patterns in nature and having a clear idea of the workings of man made and natural developments. (Campbell, Campbell & Dickinson, 2004)
Each of these intelligences, according to Gardner, are in every one of us, but each one is not at the same level. So your friend may have a very high musical intelligence yet a very low bodily-kinesthetic awareness but he still has both within him. In my own classroom, I will adapt to the various needs of my students and their intelligences with creative assignments that can cater to their various skills. Say, for instance, we have just read The Scarlett Letter. I could give my students the ability to decide what they would do for their own project. Instead of writing the typical three page paper over their understanding of the novel, I would instead give them the option of various creative exports. They could write a song about the life of Hester Prynne, design a line of clothing from the book with the red letter “A”, build or draw a scene from the novel, or maybe use another classmate to collaborate a script that they act out for the class. Giving my students options for how to efficiently show their understanding of the novel shows my ability as an educator to grasp and further develop their different intelligences. In this way, I will be demonstrating my knowledge of sub-standard 2.5 and sub-standard 2.3.
· Verbal- the ability to use language and words to communicate and to express thoughts and insights
· Mathematical- thinking in a way to explain mathematical operations.
· Spatial- these are the people that think concretely, more with physical elements and objects.
· Bodily-kinesthetic- the body knowledge to be physically proficient and operate objects.
· Musical- a developed ear to musical elements such at pitch, melody, rhythm or tone.
· Intrapersonal- an ease of understanding an appropriate way to interact with others effective and efficiently
· Naturalist- seeing patterns in nature and having a clear idea of the workings of man made and natural developments. (Campbell, Campbell & Dickinson, 2004)
Each of these intelligences, according to Gardner, are in every one of us, but each one is not at the same level. So your friend may have a very high musical intelligence yet a very low bodily-kinesthetic awareness but he still has both within him. In my own classroom, I will adapt to the various needs of my students and their intelligences with creative assignments that can cater to their various skills. Say, for instance, we have just read The Scarlett Letter. I could give my students the ability to decide what they would do for their own project. Instead of writing the typical three page paper over their understanding of the novel, I would instead give them the option of various creative exports. They could write a song about the life of Hester Prynne, design a line of clothing from the book with the red letter “A”, build or draw a scene from the novel, or maybe use another classmate to collaborate a script that they act out for the class. Giving my students options for how to efficiently show their understanding of the novel shows my ability as an educator to grasp and further develop their different intelligences. In this way, I will be demonstrating my knowledge of sub-standard 2.5 and sub-standard 2.3.
- Sub-standard 2.5- strategies for promoting students' independent thinking and learning, reflection, and higher-order thinking, and the ability to use these strategies to promote students' growth as learners
- Sub-standard 2.3-knowledge of how student learning is influenced by different types of instructional practices and teacher behaviors, and the ability to use this knowledge to promote learning for all students