intervention in school and clinic 2003 stanford 80 5

80 INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL AND CLINIC VOL. 39, NO. 2, NOVEMBER 2003 (PP. 80–85)

Multiple Intelligence for Every Classroom

POKEY STANFORD

This article presents an overview of multiple intelligence (MI)

theory along with practical applications of the model. In par-

ticular, three basic aspects of the theory (teaching strategies,

curricular adaptations, and student assessment) are described

relative to the infusion of MI theory in general education

classrooms to ensure appropriate inclusion for students with

mild to moderate disabilities.

at Libreria Campus on November 11, 2015isc.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://isc.sagepub.com/

VOL. 39, NO. 2, NOVEMBER 2003 81

Multiple intelligence (MI) theory has receivedmuch attention over the past 20 years(Campbell, 1997; Silver, Strong, & Perini,1997). Almost 80 years after the first intel-ligence tests were developed, Howard

Gardner challenged the notion that intelligence is some-thing that can be objectively measured and reduced to asingle quotient or score. Maintaining that our culturehas defined intelligence too narrowly, Gardner proposedin Frames of Mind (1983) the existence of at least sevenbasic intelligences; since then an eighth has been added(Checkley, 1997; Roper & Davis, 2000). Gardner’s workhas encouraged educators and parents to view children asequals regardless of a quotient produced from an intelli-gence exam or of academic areas for which they developcompetence. Practitioners of MI understand that chil-dren do not fit a single prototype.

Gardner sought to broaden the perception of humanpotential beyond the confines of traditional IQ scores,seriously questioning the validity of determining an indi-vidual’s intelligence through the practice of taking theperson out of his or her natural environment and askinghim or her to attempt isolated tasks never done before—and probably never to be done again. Thus, Gardner sug-gested educators view intelligence as the capacity forsolving problems and fashioning products in context-richand naturalistic settings (Armstrong, 1994) rather thanplace the traditional importance on the ability to producea large quotient.

Defining the Intelligences

Gardner (1997) defined the various intelligence areas asfollows:

Verbal/linguistic intelligence: the production oflanguage, abstract reasoning, symbolic thinking, concep-tual patterning, reading, and writing.

Logical/mathematical intelligence: the capacity torecognize patterns, work with abstract symbols (e.g., num-bers, geometric shapes), and discern relationships or seeconnections between separate and distinct pieces of infor-mation.

Visual/spatial intelligence: visual arts, navigation,mapmaking, architecture, and games requiring the abilityto visualize objects from different perspectives and angles.

Bodily/kinesthetic intelligence: the ability to usethe body to express emotion, to play a game, and to cre-ate a new product.

Musical/rhythmic intelligence: capacities such asthe recognition and use of rhythmic and tonal patterns andsensitivity to sounds from the environment, the humanvoice, and musical instruments.

Interpersonal intelligence: the ability to work co-operatively with others in a small group, as well as the

ability to communicate verbally and nonverbally withother people.

Intrapersonal intelligence: the internal aspects ofthe self, such as knowledge of feelings, range of emo-tional responses, thinking processes, self-reflection, and asense of intuition about spiritual realities.

Naturalistic intelligence: the ability to recognizepatterns in nature and classify objects, the mastery of tax-onomy, sensitivity to other features of the natural world,and an understanding of different species.

Existential intelligence: the human response to beingalive in all ways (Gardner is still not satisfied that he hasenough physiological brain evidence to conclusively es-tablish this as an intelligence).

Beyond the descriptions of the eight intelligences,certain aspects of the theory are important to remember,especially when working with individuals with disabili-ties. For example, Armstrong (1994) suggested that fourelements be considered. First, each person possesses alleight intelligences. Each person has capacities in all eightintelligences. Of course, the eight intelligences functiontogether in ways unique to each person. Some people ap-pear to possess extremely high levels of functioning in allor most of the eight intelligences, yet others appear tolack all but the most basic aspects of the intelligences.Most fall somewhere in between highly developed insome intelligences, modestly developed in others, and rel-atively underdeveloped in the rest. Students with learn-ing disabilities often exhibit deficits in verbal/linguisticor logical/mathematical intelligences but show strengthsin other areas. Unfortunately, schools put more emphasison verbal/linguistic and logical/mathematical.

Practices to Emerge

MI theory is perhaps more accurately described as a phi-losophy of education or an attitude toward learning(Armstrong, 1994), in the spirit of John Dewey’s ideas(1916, 1938) on progressive education, rather than a setprogram of fixed techniques and strategies. As such, it of-fers educators a broad opportunity to creatively adapt itsfundamental principles to any number of educational set-tings. Implications for school reform and classroom ap-plication include expanded teaching strategies, curricularadaptations, and expanded student assessment. Indeedunsuccessful, unmotivated students have experienced aca-demic growth when exposed to multifaceted interventionsand techniques principled by MI theory (Janes, Koutso-panagos, Mason, & Villaranda, 2000).

The teacher’s role in an MI classroom contrasts sharplywith that of a teacher in a traditional classroom (Gardner,1997). In the traditional classroom, the teacher lectureswhile standing at the front of the classroom, writes on theboard, questions students about the assigned readings or



82 INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL AND CLINIC

handouts, and waits as students finish written work. Incomparison, in the MI classroom, the teacher continuallyshifts method of presentation from linguistic to spatial tomusical, and so on, often combining intelligences in cre-ative ways. Next, we will look at some practical aspects ofMI theory.

Teaching Strategies

MI makes its greatest contribution to education by sug-gesting that teachers expand their repertoire of tech-niques, tools, and strategies beyond the typical linguisticand logical ones predominantly used in U.S. class-rooms (Campbell, 1997). According to John Goodlad’spioneering “A Study of Schooling” project, which in-volved researchers’ observing more than 1,000 classroomsnationwide, nearly 70% of classroom time was consumedby teacher talk—mainly teachers talking at students (giv-ing instructions, lecturing). The second, most widely ob-served activity was students’ doing written assignments.According to Goodlad (1984), “Much of this work was inthe form of responding to directives in workbooks or onworksheets” (p. 230). In this context, the theory of mul-tiple intelligences functions not only as a specific remedyto one-sidedness in teaching but also as an organizationaltool that facilitates and synthesizes existing educationalpedagogy. In doing so, it provides s broad range of stim-ulating curricula to awaken the slumbering brains thatGoodlad fears populate our nation’s schools.

MI theory provides an avenue for accomplishing whatgood teachers have always done: Reach beyond the textto provide varied opportunities for students to learn andshow evidence of learning. MI theory provides a frame-work for teachers to reflect on their best teaching meth-ods and to understand why these methods work (or whythey work well for some students but not for others). Italso helps teachers expand their teaching repertoire to in-clude a broader range of methods, materials, and tech-

niques for reaching an ever-wider and more diverse rangeof learners.

MI theory opens the door to a wide variety of teach-ing strategies that can easily be implemented in the class-room. In many cases, these are strategies that have beenused for decades by good teachers. In other cases, thetheory of MI offers teachers an opportunity to developinnovative teaching strategies. In either case, MI theorysuggests that no one set of strategies will work best for allstudents at all times. All children have different pre-dispositions in the eight intelligences, so any particularstrategy is likely to be highly successful with one group ofstudents and less successful with other groups (Silver etal., 1997). For example, teachers who use rhythms, raps,and chants as a pedagogical tool will probably find thatmusically inclined students respond enthusiastically to thisstrategy but nonmusical students remain unmoved. Sim-ilarly, the use of pictures and images will reach studentswho are more spatially oriented but perhaps have a dif-ferent effect on those who are more physically or verballyinclined (see Figure 1).

Because of individual differences among students,teachers are best advised to use a broad range of teachingstrategies. As long as instructors shift their intelligenceemphasis from presentation to presentation, there will al-ways be time during a day when a student’s most highlydeveloped intelligence is actively involved in learning.Currently, for students with disabilities, it is often onlytheir weakest area that is used for most of the day. Bal-ancing strategies gives equal opportunity to the individ-ual student who struggles with obtaining informationthrough one intelligence and allows the student to usethe strengths he or she possesses for learning. Figure 2shows how teachers can reach all learners by using a the-matic approach with concept development and MI.

Expanding Assessment

Effective assessment is in alignment with instructionalpractices (Bellanca, Chapman, & Swartz, 1994). Chang-ing teaching strategies and curricula without changingassessment methods will not bring about the full benefitof MI theory for teaching and learning. Thus, if MI the-ory is to be used in classrooms, teachers must change theway they assess student learning (Chapman, 1993). Tra-ditional assessment limits learners to a pencil-and-papertest as the primary means of demonstrating knowledgeand skills. MI theory brings about an awareness of manyassessment strategies that allow students to show theyunderstand and can use new information in unique ways.Assessment alternatives include logs and journals, graphicorganizers, observational checklists, video samples, rub-rics, miscue analyses, and portfolios. Such alternative formsof assessment offer students the potential to demonstratelearning content in a variety of ways. An example is a




math lesson or unit in which the teacher assesses cooper-ative groups (interpersonal intelligence), hands-on ma-nipulative (bodily/kinesthetic intelligence), or reflectionlogs (intrapersonal intelligence).

To facilitate the use of multiple assessments for themultiple intelligences, teachers will need to rethink howstudents can show what they know. The multiple intelli-

gences strengths self-checklist (see Figure 3) allows learn-ers to begin to self-identify where their strengths arewithin the differing intelligences. Authentic assessmentoffers opportunities for students with learning disabilitiesby allowing an alternative means of measuring growthand development. When a learner can help with the iden-tification of a strength, assessments can be focused on

Figure 1. Multiple intelligence activites related to the topic of fractions.



84 INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL AND CLINIC

reaching the learner’s full potiental. Miscue analysis, forexample, allows teachers to focus specific and intensiveinstruction on an individual basis by identifying the needof the learner in the context of strengths (Reutzel &Cooter, 2003).

New assessments should not focus on whether or notstudents can acquire knowledge but on whether or notthey can acquire the disposition to use skills and strategiesappropriately. Recent studies have suggested that poorthinkers and poor problem solvers may possess the skillsthey need but fail to use them in certain tasks (Burke,1994). Integration of learning, motivation, collaboration,and metacognition all contribute to lifelong learning. As-sessments that move beyond measuring knowledge andskills and begin measuring the disposition of using theknowledge/skills will better meet the needs of learners.

In the MI classrooms, the possibilities for assessingstudent learning are as numerous as the options for orga-nizing curricula and teaching strategies (Bellanca et al.,1994). In the traditional classroom, assessment drives in-struction. In the multiple intelligence classroom, assess-ment and instruction are partners. The MI classroomprovides the environment for teachers to use variedteaching strategies, expanded curricula, and authentic as-sessment to provide creative and active learning that en-gages all students (especially those with disabilities) in theconstruction of their own learning.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pokey Stanford, EdD, is an assistant professor of education atWilliam Carey College. Her current interests include MI the-ory and technology as intervention tools to further facilitate in-clusive environments for all learners. She was a classroomteacher for 7 years. Address: Pokey Stanford, William CareyCollege, 498 Tuscan Ave., WCC Box 3, Hattiesburg, MS39401-5461; e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES

Armstrong, T. (1994). Multiple intelligences in the classroom. Alexandria,VA: ASCD.

Bellanca, J., Chapman, C., & Swartz, E. (1994). Multiple assessments formultiple intelligences. Palatine, IL: IRI/Skylights Publishing.

Burke, K. (1994). The mindful school: How to assess student learning. Pala-tine, IL: IRI/Skylights Publishing.

Campbell, L. (1997). Variations on a theme—How teachers interpretMI theory. Educational Leadership, 55(1), 14–19.

Chapman, C. (1993). If the shoe fits: How to develop multiple intelligencesin the classroom. Palatine, IL: IRI/Skylights Publishing.

Checkley, K. (1997). The first seven . . . and the eighth: A conversationwith Howard Gardner. Educational Leadership, 55(1), 8–13.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan.Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Toronto: Macmillan.Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences.

New York: Basic Books.Gardner, H. (1997). Multiple intelligence as a partner in school im-

provement. Educational Leadership, 55(1), 20–21.Figure 2. Multiple intelligence activities related to the topic ofpatriotism across grade levels.




Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future. NewYork: McGraw-Hill.

Janes, L. M., Koutsopanagos, C. L., Mason, D. S., & Villaranda, I.(2000). Improving student motivation through the use of engaged learn-ing, cooperative learning and multiple intelligences. Chicago: Master’saction research project, Saint Xavier University and Skylight field-based master’s program.

Roper, B., & Davis, D. (2000). Howard Gardner: Knowledge, learning

and development in drama and arts education. Research in DramaEducation, 5(2), 234.

Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B., Jr. (2003). Strategies for reading assess-ment and instruction: Helping every child succeed (2nd ed.). Upper Sad-dle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Silver, H., Strong, R., & Perini, M. (1997). Integrating learning stylesand multiple intelligence. Educational Leadership, 55(1), 22–27.

Figure 3. Multiple intelligences strengths.



intervention in school and clinic 2003 stanford 80 5

Documents