Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
From Kathy Frazier, teacher of academically talented middle school students comes the
following comment:
“The MI (Multiple Intelligences) approach is very valuable for these kids even though they already
do well academically. We talk a lot in this class about metacognition and how we think. This project
fits right in. Some of these students are perfectionists and very self-critical. It can help some kids
who are very strong in one area like language but they have to struggle with math. They're
frustrated because the math doesn't come as easy as they expect. It's not that they're not good in
math but they don't just get it as easy as, say, the language arts. It helps with that. Some students
get really down on themselves when they must struggle in one subject while everything else comes
very easily. They think, ‘I'm really, really, really bad at this’. I have to tell them, ‘No, it's just more
challenging’.
One boy who was working on an art project said that he wanted to give up because "This is hard for
me because I'm not strong in my spatial intelligence". I had a talk with him and pointed out that
accepting challenges to improve even those areas where we are not strong is an important part of
your education. They should select those weaker areas sometimes and not always take the road of
what they're best in.
What MI theory and the MIDAS profile points out is that we all have strengths as well as
weaknesses and that it's OK to have areas where you're not so good. It makes it more acceptable to
the self-critical student.
When you give this type of student reasons and techniques for understanding why they think the
way they do, it is very powerful. It's like the MIDAS normalized them so they don't feel too different
or abnormal. We talk a lot about thinking-about-thinking and being the non-conforming, round peg in
the square hole of the classroom. This helps them to be not so frustrated. We talk about how they
might approach a teacher about doing alternative projects that better match their learning skills so
they're not so frustrated by the standard assignments. A teacher might still say "no" but it will give
her something to think about and maybe find ways to help the student who is frustrated in her class.
This gives students a tool that they can take the initiative with."
Kathy was named the 1997 Gifted Teacher of the Year by the Ohio Association of Gifted Children.
Her full report can be found in MI News on the Web.
Multiple Intelligence theory in the classroom
Multiple Intelligence is an educational philosophy. It was first introduced in “Frames of Mind” (1983)
and has been followed by many other books both by its originator, Howard Gardner, and people
such as Thomas Armstrong, Branton Shearer (who also developed the assessment scale called
MIDAS), Davis Lazear (an educator) and Bruce Campbell (also an educator). A variety of models
based on MI have been implemented in many US schools and some Australian schools with a lot of
enthusiasm. (Thomas Hoerr’s book “Becoming an MI School” is perhaps the most well-known
example.) How MI is practised in the classroom is dependant upon the educationist that implements
it. Enthusiastic testimonies abound from teachers of all different educational groups, from teachers
of gifted and talented children through to teachers of specific learning disabled children. In the latter
cases, teachers comment that when students understand their strengths (as distinct from the usual
focus of their weaknesses), their self-esteem improves. Also, when students learn through their
strengths, they not only learn more effectively but show improvement in their weaker areas.
Kinaesthetically intelligent children (those children who learn best by “doing”) and visual spatial
children (those children who learn most effectively through seeing or imagining) are reported as
making the biggest improvement within an MI teaching environment. Teachers also gain
improvements. Bruce Campbell, in reporting the results of the introduction of MI into his school,
commented,
“Due to the nature of the programme, I developed different skills than I previously relied on when
standing in front of a class lecturing each day. I began to observe my students from seven new
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
perspectives. I began working with them, rather than for them. I explored what they explored,
discovered what they discovered and often learned what they learned. I began to find my
satisfaction in their enthusiasm for learning and independence, rather than in their test scores
and ability to sit quietly, and, most importantly, in planning for such a diversity of activities. I
began to grow more creative and multi-model in my own thinking and learning. I learned to write
songs and sing. I improved my ability to draw and paint. I began to see growth and development
within myself. I even began to wonder who was changing the most, my students or myself.”
(http://www.newhorizons.org/art_mireserch.html )
The theory
Howard Gardner was dissatisfied with modern IQ tests, which tied intelligence to the ability to
provide fast concise answers to problems involving mainly linguistic and logical skills. Gardner’s
theory suggests a person is intelligent if they can solve problems that confront them in life and can
(or will, in the case of children) produce goods or services that are of value to the people around
them (their society). Gardner found that there was a wide variety of ways by which the human mind
approached problem solving or producing goods or services. Originally Gardner identified seven
distinct ways people learn and comprehend reality (using eight criteria - see chart for details). The
seven intelligences are: Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Visual/Spatial, Bodily/Kinaesthetic,
Musical, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal. Over the last two years Gardner has reviewed the
evidence for two further attributes (naturalistic and existential or spiritualism) and declared that they
also fulfil the criteria for intelligences. In this article we look at the original seven intelligences:
1. Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence - Language
Responsible for the production of language. Developed through listening and speaking,
reading and writing.
2. Logical Mathematical Intelligence - Mathematical Reasoning
Responsible for “scientific reasoning” or deductive and inductive reasoning. This implies
recognising patterns, working with abstract symbols such as numbers and geometric shapes
and realising the relationships between separate and distinct pieces of information.
Developed by problem solving.
3. Visual/Spatial Intelligence - Visual Reasoning
Responsible for how people see, use and get around in space. Developed through sight but
also through manipulating images in the mind.
4. Bodily/Kinaesthetic Intelligence - Kinaesthetic
Responsible for control of controlled and autonomous body movements.
Developed by doing, by experience.
5. Musical/Rhythmic Intelligence - Musical
Responsible for the recognition and use of rhythmic and tonal patterns. Responsible for
sensitivity to sounds. Developed by listening to and actively humming, singing or creating
noises.
6. Interpersonal Intelligence - Leadership
Responsible for co-operation - the ability to work in a group as well as communicate verbally
and non-verbally with other people. Developed from the ability to notice distinctions among
others. Also developed by learning from these distinctions.
7. Intrapersonal Intelligence - Self-Awareness
Responsible for self-knowledge. Self-knowledge includes knowing what you are feeling, your
emotions and how you think. It involves self-reflection and a sense of intuition about spiritual
realities. Intrapersonal intelligence is responsible for self image and the ability to put self to
one side to see the bigger picture, the future, the larger order of things and the essence or
spirituality of the occasion. It is developed through awareness exercises. This intelligence is
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
expressed through other intelligences - the writer through language, the dancer through
kinaesthetics and the composer through music.
Intelligence, according to Gardner, is not a ”learning style”. A “style” is a general approach
applicable across many activities, whereas an intelligence is a capacity which is specifically related
to content. For example, if a child is said to have a “reflective style” he will apply that style to two or
more different contents such as music and language.
How this theory is implemented in an educational environment is set out in the chart “Multiple
Intelligence - Overview”
A gifted child is a blend of these described intelligences. She may be gifted in each and every one
of these intelligences or may be gifted in only one or two. Most IQ (intelligence quotient) tests
measure linguistic and logical/mathematical intelligence (language and mathematical reasoning)
although a few subtests such as “block design” measure one aspect of visual/spatial intelligence.
Thus a high IQ (above 125) indicates gifts in these intelligences, but as IQ is a scaled and averaged
measurement, your child is not necessarily equally gifted in logic/mathematical and linguistic
intelligence. To convert her gifts (potential) into talents (achievement or performance) and be
successful at school, she needs to develop all intelligences but particularly linguistics and
mathematics. If she is to become successful in her career, she needs to fully develop a selection of
intelligences, not necessarily linguistics and mathematics. For example, if she is to become a
talented architect, a student must develop gifts in logic/mathematical and visual reasoning. If she is
to gain prominence as an architect, she must also have achieved a competent level of achievement
in language (to produce reports and communicate with clients and colleagues) and interpersonal
intelligence (to be a manager or work in a team). Career advisers in MI schools in the USA are
using this knowledge to constructively advise students in which careers they would be most
successful and to advise their students of the courses they need to complete to obtain their career
goal. With a gifted child this has a strong impact as they become increasingly motivated to
strengthen their areas of weakness sufficiently well enough to gain access to a chosen (and
appropriate) career.
School subjects are also not aligned perfectly with the different intelligences. English teaching
primarily develops language but also involves problem solving (mathematical reasoning) and some
visual/spatial components. The physical act of writing requires bodily skills. Mathematics at school
develops mathematical reasoning but also encourages visual reasoning (geometry). Science is a
mixture of all of the Multiple Intelligences excluding music and the personal intelligences. By
understanding “intelligence” is not one, but a variety of combinations of different intelligences,
parents and educators realise a gifted child can have “blind spots”. (see chart)
Adopting MI as an educational model changes the teacher’s underlying approach to education.
These changes are:
• There is more than one intelligence. Therefore there is more than one intelligent way to
approach a problem or produce goods and services.
This element of the theory has been positively exploited in special educational programmes.
For example, programmes for hearing impaired children where knowledge usually taught
verbally is taught visually/spatially or kinaesthetically (using touch (feeling), drama,
constructing.). As evidenced in the opening quote, MI has also been used very successfully
with gifted children.
The theory does not propose that all topics can be taught equally effectively through each
intelligence. Howard Gardner has always emphasised that, for instance, mathematics is
most effectively taught using the symbols (”language”) of mathematics and not through
language, that English is taught most effectively using words (the “symbols” of linguistic
intelligence). However, when teaching applied subjects such as history, there is not one
most effective symbol that ensures that the student absorbs the knowledge. It can be words,
pictures, demonstrations etc. How the student most effectively shows that they “know” a
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
subject in history is also not predetermined, but a product of the student and the subject. It is
only in the traditional educational system that language has become the only way to show
that you “know” a subject. Once the student enters a career it is often more important to “do”
the task than to verbalise or write about it.
• Each child is a unique combination of intelligences. This leads to a belief in individually-based
education rather than the present common form of uniform education.
• People can all learn to be more intelligent and can teach others to be more intelligent by
understanding or “knowing” at more than one level or type of intelligence.
Most MI educators, and many others, are convinced that knowledge based on many
intelligences is much more lasting and comprehensive than, for example, “book” knowledge.
• The development of each individual intelligence is independent of the other intelligences. This is
simply because it involves different areas of the brain.
Children who have a learning disability do not generally demonstrate neurological problems
uniformly throughout their brain. Typically the learning disability is isolated to one discrete
area of the brain, and strategies that avoid the damaged area allow the student to learn in
spite of the damage. For example, if a student has difficulty visualising his times tables, he
can be taught them through chanting (or more elaborate musical strategies), or by use of
algorithms. A student who cannot remember the meaning of a word, often will “remember”
the meaning if he draws a picture or icon next to the word. It is often forgotten in MI
educational models that each intelligence consists of one or more capacities that are
usually, but not always, present in the same strength in an individual. For example, rhythm,
pitch and timbre are usually found together in a musically gifted person, but not always. This
permits “fine tuning” of the model. If a capacity is not located in the same area of the brain as
one that is poorly functioning, then that capacity may be exploited separately, almost like
another intelligence. I, for instance, cannot form “images” in my mind, but I sculpt, a spatial
pursuit. Both these capacities are part of visual-spatial intelligence. Knowledge of capacities
at this level is very useful for understanding some of the unevenness in gifted children. In the
chart “Multiple Intelligence - an Overview” I have included some references to the location in
the brain that most effectively controls a particular capacity.
• While each intelligence can be shown to develop separately, at some level intelligence is
unified. When solving a problem, all intelligences work together. The stronger intelligences tend
to lead the weaker ones into achieving task completion.
This is an aspect of MI theory that many educationalists “know” and employ, but it does not
often appear in explanations of MI. It is why teaching “through” a child’s strength works. It is
why visual-spatial gifted children achieve greater results in more difficult problems. They use
their gifted intelligence (or “mastery”, as Howard Gardner refers to giftedness) to lead or
access their weaker intelligence, linguistics. Howard Gardner has never advocated that the
intelligences are independent of each other, yet some MI educationists act as though they
were unconnected even thought they “know” that they aren’t.
• Intelligence is not just an inherited trait but can be developed.
This is a consequence of the link between ”intelligence” and its neurological base. It is
known from studies in neurophysiology and related fields (Hannaford, 1995) that neural
activity (physical, sensory or cognitive) results in maintaining or establishing neural growth. It
thus follows that this growth manifests itself in the child’s improved ability to achieve.
Classroom strategies
Changing the philosophy of education throughout an entire school is a daunting programme.
Precedents, given in outline form or in detail from books, articles or websites, give teachers/
principals a chance to utilise ideas other schools have implemented to create an MI-friendly
environment.
Some schools have used the idea of tool rooms where classes rotate to different rooms which
house the materials commonly used when teaching with that intelligence. Other schools implement
the different strategies side-by-side. Some teachers allow their students to choose which initial
exercise they want to complete (remembering that each exercise is designed to teach
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
predominantly through one intelligence). Other teachers/schools insist all students undertake
lessons in the same sequence.
Teachers usually approach MI from two directions. Some teachers plan lessons teaching content
through each intelligence. Other teachers plan their lessons around the strengths and weakness of
their student’s MI profiles. MI educationists generally prefer the later approach, as it encourages
teaching weak students through their strengths. Teachers find that teaching through strengths
develops a child’s weaker intelligence. Thus, if a class of gifted children had a predominance of
visual spatial learners with relatively weak linguistic intelligence, class plans for history and other
applied subjects would involve considerable use of visual strategies to improve the effectiveness of
the teaching. While this would also help develop their student’s linguistic abilities, the class plan
would additionally target English language development.
Many teachers use MI strategies, but will not have identified in a systematic way which
intelligence(s) is involved, nor will they have identified which students will benefit and which
students will feel challenged by the strategy. Suggestions expressed by Denise Wood in
“Alternatives to the Cardboard Project” (Wood, 2000), utilise classic MI strategies for project work. It
is easy to see the similarities between the projects suggested in the article and Shaw’s “MI
strategies for Year 11 History class” which follow this article. As Wood indicates in her article, a task
should be set and assessed (or valued) using the same symbols. Thus a model (kinaesthetic) must
function (or perform the task set by the teacher) and have structural and visual integrity, just as an
essay (linguistic) must contain grammatical constructions and tell the story (or the task set by the
teacher).
Motivation and Multiple Intelligences
Teachers of any group of gifted children are aware that students of the same mental age do not all
have the same cognitive profiles. Some are better at maths, others at language, some are better at
answering verbally, others at written answers, others obviously understand a concept but can’t
express their knowledge. Teachers often teach achieving students that have confounding,
consistent and specific discrepancies between their intelligence and their performance. Parents of
these gifted children are also puzzled by the unevenness in their child’s performance when they
review test results. These parents do not know if they should provide tutorial help (where do you
find programmes suitable for students who already perform above grade average?), chastise their
child for “not trying” or obtain a referral to an educational assessor. In many of these cases the
student’s MI profile can provide a model for understanding the difference between a child’s
intelligence and subsequent performance within a scholastic environment. (see chart)
At some point a parent may have been advised by a teacher that a child’s poor test performance
was because of lack of interest. With this statement, the child’s teacher is advising the parent that
the child’s lack of performance is “his own fault.” But is it?
It has been known for some time that children learn best when:
• Learning is fun or pleasurable, not because they think they will be rewarded (although a bribe
never hurts!). This is called intrinsic motivation.
One effective way of motivating a student is to have them undertake activities for which the
student has some talent. With progress, the student avoids undue frustration and goes on to
learn more. For the educator this means identifying activities that will rapidly become
rewarding for a group of predisposed students. When application of Multiple Intelligence
theory is made in this way teachers (and parents) are “teaching through a child’s strength”. It
is particularly effective when applied to students who demonstrate uneven performance or
significant discrepancies between different intelligences.
• They are emotionally involved. Children learn, remember and are more likely to use experiences
that are troubling, mystifying or off-putting as well as ones that are pleasurable.
Students are “turned off” or “on” very quickly, so a memorable opening illustration or
attention-grabbing comment helps engage their minds. MI provides a plethora of ways to
broach a topic, one of which the students are sure not to have experienced previously.
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
• They are challenged. Children will not adopt new behaviour or new strategies in learning unless
they are challenged.
Traditional methods of teaching a student who has failed to learn the first time, is to repeat
the same experience, perhaps slower, or perhaps one-to-one. There is no challenge to a
gifted student in a remedial programme. MI theory would teach students through their
strength; the content does not need to be downgraded.
• They become so absorbed in a physical or mental activity that they temporarily lose track of
space, time, worldly concerns and even pain. This is one of the strongest motivating
experiences a child can have of learning.
Teaching through a student’s strength allows the student to get involved, in-depth in a
subject and experience the “flow state” mentioned above. This method teaches
perseverance. It also motivates a child for further learning. Many case studies of students,
particularly special needs students, tell of children that achieve this motivating experience for
the first time when taught using MI strategies. Armstrong (1987).
• Their motivation is magnified by early pleasurable experiences of play. This pleasure in play is
further enhanced by identification and approval of the adult who is with them when they learn
something new. Intrinsic motivation is enhanced if that adult understands discipline and the
nexus between fun and effort.
• They are enveloped within (classroom or home life or both) an atmosphere of continual
improvement - a cycle of practise, learning and expression.
With gifted and talented children, the use of MIDAS (a self-assessment test for measuring a
student’s MI profile) as a metacognition tool has proven very successful. With all gifted children
(particularly those with learning disabilities) it also appears to help self-esteem, mainly because it
rewards them for the success achieved when learning through their strengths. It also motivates
children to accept the challenge of developing their relative weaker intelligences.
Assessment Methods – Comment on the MIDAS website – Finding out more!
The Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS), represents the first effort to
measure the multiple intelligences. It has been developed according to standard psychometric
procedures and is said to provide an efficient method of obtaining a descriptive assessment of a
student's multiple intelligence profile. The MIDAS is a self-reported measure of intellectual
disposition and may be completed by either the child or an adult. It was developed by Branton
Shearer (principal and author) and is available from the MIDAS website.
www.angelfire.com/oh/themidasnews/contents.html
This site will take you to the MI News site from where links to more information are available.
Resources also available from the MIDAS website (and others) include material designed to
enhance study skills and self-knowledge. There is material covering instructional approaches,
curriculum planning and career development. There are MIDAS assessments for adults,
adolescents and children. These can be purchased from this website. There are many examples of
classroom application on the web. The MIDAS site publishes reviews that often include testimonials.
Usually teachers provide an email address for correspondence and private communication.
There are other assessment methods, most of which are free. The best place to access these is to
join an e-group on MI (access it through MIDAS site) and ask other teachers where to find the
material.
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
Strategies for a visual-spatial learner (with auditory disabilities)
The characteristics of Linda Silverman’s visual spatial learner can be roughly equated to Howard
Gardner’s visual-spatial intelligence. Her auditory learner can be compared to Gardner’s linguistic
and mathematical/logical intelligence.
Silverman’s model has an advantage in its simplicity. However, Gardner’s MI theory has an equal
advantage with its acceptance of a more complex variation in children’s patterns of achievement.
For example, Silverman’s model implies that a child with language difficulties will usually/often have
problems with arithmetic (both are sequential activities) whereas the MI model alleges a separate
development path for these intelligences. In support of the MI model is the significant number of
primary school children who are gifted in arithmetic but who have inadequate language.
MI theory also has another advantage: the availability of strategies that help students who:
• Show evidence of a dysfunction in an area of the brain associated with a specific intelligence.
• Demonstrate inconsistent performance in the area of their giftedness.
The success of the MI strategies (teaching through a child’s strength) is usually attributed to use of
a different neural pathway to access the area of the brain associated with the required intelligence.
A review of the strategies for teaching visual spatial learners with auditory disabilities given by
Silverman and Sword (1989, 2000) reveals two approaches:
• To remediate or lessen the effect of the auditory disability, and
• To teach using visual spatial strategies.
Educational models using MI have developed, implemented and evaluated a wide range of visual-
spatial strategies to use in the classroom that will help these students learn more effectively. Using
MI strategies, students learn using their gifted visual-spatial intelligence and may find that they also
learn effectively through musical, logical/mathematical or the personal intelligences. A MI classroom
can teach topics through each of the intelligences, thereby giving every student a chance to learn.
Alternatively, with the knowledge of each student’s MI profile, it can direct primary learning
experiences to a specific student’s gifted intelligence. MI emphasises that while teaching through a
student’s strength, their weaker intelligences are strengthened. MI education holds that all
intelligences should and can be developed. Gifted students, if taught metacognition in an MI
environment, come to terms with unevenness in their school performance and can become
motivated to improve their own weaknesses.
The key to visual-spatial learning is being able to:
o watch something and “action replay” it in the head so that the individual can do it.
o think in pictures and images (and manipulate them in space).
At a cognitive level it is being able to:
o see events in the mind’s eye through visualisation and imagining.
o “see” the times tables and read and copy them down.
o “see” colour, shape and texture.
o conjure up the whole scene again, whether scenery, scenes from a film or from real-life
experience, a painting or a sequence of movements.
The above-described students learn by copying, by seeing, by doodling, drawing, charting and
painting.
As already stated, knowing a student’s MI profile allows for a more individualistic programme to be
developed for each student. For example, if a student is:
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
1. gifted in visual-spatial intelligence,
2. relatively weak in linguistics, but is also
3. strong (or even gifted) kinaesthetically,
an MI teacher would employ a lot of visual spatial strategies, decrease the amount of auditory
teaching strategies and also increase the amount of “show me how it is done”, the number of
experiments in science, and set modelling assignments in history or geography. If a kinaesthetically
gifted student is taught using kinaesthetic strategies, many of the negative behavioural patterns
associated with psychomotor and sensual supersensitivity disappear. Just encouraging activity in
these students helps them focus and become involved.
If a gifted child has a specific gift in the inter-personal intelligence, then strategies involving co-
operative learning or leadership themes will also be effective. If, instead, a child is gifted or strong in
intra -personal intelligence, then strategies that involve metacognitive techniques requiring overall
thinking and planning strategies, emotional processing, higher order reasoning and the use of
independent studies/projects will be most effective. These strategies which teach through intra-
personal intelligence include many that are used for gifted students that are emotional y
overexcitable. (see chart)
Summary
MI theory and practice has been around long enough for its efficiency to be judged. It is an
approach that reportedly works well with gifted students and particularly well with gifted students
who show discrepancies between intelligence and performance.
Many teachers, particularly those involved in gifted education, already utilise many MI strategies.
These same teachers will realise how their students would benefit from a more formal introduction
of MI in their classroom. Not only do students improve, but the teachers themselves benefit through
development on a professional basis.
Knowledge of which intelligence is being challenged, which students will learn most effectively and
which students will be challenged by a particular strategy, improves the effectiveness of the
strategy. MI provides a model for the systematic and controlled use of these strategies.
General References
Books
Armstrong, T. In their own way: Discovering and encouraging your child's personal learning style
(1987) New York: Tarcher/Putnam.
This is just one of the many books Armstrong has written on educating special students
through MI. He is particularly known for his redefinition of LD as Learning Differently.
Gardner, H. Frames of Mind: A Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983) New York: Basic Books
Gardner has written many other books including his latest book, “Frames Revisited”, in
which his theory on the 8th and 9th intelligence is given. Access these titles from any of the
on-line publishers.
Hannaford, C. Smart Moves – Why Learning is Not All in Your Head (1995) Virginia, USA: Great
Ocean Publishers
This book looks at learning through neuro-physiological evidence
Lazear, D. Eight Ways of Knowing: Teaching for Multiple Intelligences (1999) Melbourne: Hawker
Brownlow,
Lazear is the educationist who worked with Gardner in their school, Project Zero, which
developed Multiple Intelligence theory into classroom practice.
Pittelkow, K & Jacob, A. Discover the Gifts and Talents in Your Child (2000) Sydney: Simon&
Schuster
This book, where it deals with school performance, looks at a gifted child through the eyes of
MI.
Springer, SP, Deutsch G. Left Brain Right Brain – Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience (1998)
5th ed. New York: W.H. Freeman and Co.
This book looks at the evidence for cerebral hemispheric differences.
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
Articles
Lind, S. (1999) Supersensitivity and Gifted Individual. Gifted, 110, 1, 21-23
Silverman, L.D. (1989) Invisible Gifts, Invisible Handicaps. Roeper Review, 1 2(1), 37-42
Sword, Lesley. (2000) I Think in Pictures, You Teach in Words: The Gifted Visual Spatial Learner.
Gifted, 114, 1, 27-30
Wood, D (2000) Alternatives to the Cardboard Project: Other Ways to Produce a Project. Gifted,
116, 1,21-22
Websites
1. http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~shd/
2. http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/books/armstrong00book.html
3. http://www.angelfire.com/oh/themidasnews/contents.html
4. http://www.newhorizons.org/bibmishelf.html (and links)
Kay Pittelkow, scientist and educational popularist has recently co-authored a book
"Discovering the Gifts and Talents in your Child”. In this book she has used the concept of
multiple intelligence theory to look at your school age gifted mathematician and scientist and
your child’s school performance, with particular emphasis on children who have uneven MI
profiles. Kay is also a firm supporter of Gagne’s model of talent development, and takes you
step by step through the factors that influence the development of your child’s gifts into a
talent. Kay is an active member of a support group for parents of gifted children who have
learning disabilities.
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Variety is the spice of life: multiple intelligence and the gifted
References & Bibliography
I recommend using YAHOO (a search engine) and typing in MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES.
You will get access to schools using MI, publishers selling books on MI and a lot more.
There is so much information available it is easy to lose a site. I recommend saving the
references of good sites and then annotating and culling them.
1. General MI sites
a. http://users.cyberone.com.au/mevans
An Australian site generated by a school principal as part of his doctorate
research. It is an easy entry into MI and gives a few of the major links.
b. www.newhorizons.org/bibmishelf.html/ This is not the opening site for
Howard Gardner’s school, but it is the one I use. It has many references to
schools using MI.
c. www.igs.net/~cmorris/ This is where to go for information on MIDAS and MI
NEWS. You can also join an e-group on MI.
d. http://www.coedu.usf.edu/~morris/ This is a site by Barry Morris with lots of
teacher support material.
e. www.ascd.org/readingroom/books/armstrong00book.html
f. www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed410226.html There are others.
g. http://www.edc.org/CCT/ccthome/reports/tr4.html This is a research essay in
which are sketched the background and the major claims of a new approach
to the conceptualisation and assessment of human intelligence. Put forth in
1983, the theory of multiple intelligences has inspired a number of research-
and-development projects that are taking place in schools, ranging from
preschool through to high school.
h. http://www.multi-intell.com/ This site concentrates on ideas presented by
David Lazear, educationist. Also has excellent links to schools using MI.
i. http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~shd/ This site is interesting in that it also presents
“dos-and-don’ts” for children weak in the intelligence. I have used some of the
information in one the charts.
j. http://www.literacynet.org/diversity/spelling.html This site shows how spelling
can be taught using MI (the author’s do not recommend teaching spelling out
of context, but if you want to, here it is). The site is a very valuable resource
for teachers wanting to implement MI for literacy.
2. Books
a. Gardner, H. Frames of Mind: A Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983) New
York: Basic Books
b. Lazear, D. Eight Ways of Knowing: Teaching for Multiple Intelligences (1999)
Melbourne: Hawker Brownlow
c. Pittelkow, K & Jacob, A. Discover the Gifts and Talents in Your Child (2000)
Sydney: Simon & Schuster
3. Sites concerned with teaching gifted children using MI
a. www.australia.edu/QueenslandTeaching/Multiple_intelligences.html There is
another Queensland Government site - their virtual database site that
contains references to MI, but currently it is unavailable - worth keeping an
eye open. Sue Shaw, Head of Teaching and Learning at Canterbury College,
Beenleigh, QLD, is actively assisting and guiding teachers to implement MI in
their classroom.
b. www.cais.com/gep This is an on-line bookseller/publisher. I was impressed
by the new book “Applying Multiple Intelligences to gifted education: I’m not
just an IQ score” by Colleen Willard-Holt and Dan Holt ISBN 0-910609-35-7.
Also a new book titled “Gifted Education home: a case for self-directed home
schooling” ISBN 0-910609-40-3 sounded interesting and pertinent.
Kay Pittelkow 2000
Add New Comment