Multiple Intelligences (MI) and me
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| Result after taking Multiple Intelligences Quitz. |
Before I took the Multiple
Intelligences (MI) test, I already knew I am visual/spatial kind of a guy, for I
have strong sense of direction and space, and I recall things easily from actual
scenes (pictures) I saw in the past. What
makes me that way is unknown but is probably because of the blood in my family,
for my father and brother are all air force pilots. Nonetheless, it still shocks me when I hit
full scores (25 points) at visual/spatial aspect in Birmingham Grid for
Learning.
I am also good at
interpersonal and intrapersonal parts of the grid (both hit 22 points). Not only do I enjoy some quality down time by
solitary learning, but also the fun and intelligent sparkles inspired by
engaging group and social activities.
That probably explains why I chose Foreign Service as my career for last
12 years.
Musical aspect ranks third (21
points) in my MI strength according to the grid, probably because I learned
playing piano for 6 years before high school and quite enjoy the experience. Although I get some mediocre scores (both 20
points) in Logical and Linguistic aspects of the grid, what really surprised me
is that I only got 19 points at Kinesthetic aspect and the reason of that is yet to be discovered, because I thought I am quite
good at “learning by doing” and “experiential learning” which also become part my
belief in teaching.
Dale’s Cone of Experience:
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| Dale's Cone of Experience-Original |
Dale’s Cone of Experience really
makes a lot of sense to me regarding the degree of abstraction on vehicle
chosen for teaching and learning. It
seems to me that concrete and direct purposeful experiences are much better serving
as effective and efficient means for teaching and learning than highly abstract
text/verbal symbols. Therefore, items
listed on the higher tier of Dales’ Cone of Experience do not represent any superiority
than items listed on the lower tier of the cone, because these items are
distinguished by the degree of abstraction.
Blooms’ Taxonomy:
Blooms’ Taxonomy, on the other hand,
does depict a bottom-up cluster of lower to higher order thinking skills, which
are widely accepted and used in modern educational scholars, experts, as well
as practitioners, no matter in its original form of taxonomy (knowledge,
comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) or later
revised form of taxonomy (remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing,
evaluating, and creating). It is now very
often the requirement for modern instructors to deliberately design their
lesson plan so that learners could develop the ability of using Higher Order
Thinking Skills (HOTS) such as applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.
The Universal Design for Learning (UDL):
According to National Center of
Universal Design for Learning, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) “is a set of
principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal
opportunities to learn. UDL provides a
blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments
that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather
flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.” It also comes with three principles to
provide “multiple means of representation”, “multiple means of action and
expression”, and “multiple means of engagement” to learners so that all individuals could obtain equal opportunities to learn.
Theory of my choice:
My teaching strategy varies depending on the subject and content of the instruction. Although I intend to keep my teaching strategy flexible, my goal is always to create an engaging and interesting learning environment featuring task-based and cooperative approaches, because I found students learn most not only when they engage the task with passion and interests, but also when they work together in team and communicate to share their thoughts and help each other in order to complete the task. Therefore, I always remind myself to design tasks and activities that students could actively hands-on and involve in the task or project. And it is logical to assume that experiential learning theory or constructivist theory should be my favorites among various learning theories.
However, the fact that there are so many competing learning theories
nowadays makes the point there is no single learning theory so far that is
absolutely true, accurate, persuasive or powerful enough to explain everything
regarding the question of how people learn so as to exclude other theories and
dominate the field. It seems these competing learning theories are
majorly different in their research focuses and scopes, yet none of them can
provide a completely satisfactory explanation on how people really learn,
otherwise there would not be the latest development of educational neuroscience
at least to try to examine and explain how our brain really works
in learning process. Therefore, I do not believe there is one
learning theory that best explains how people learn.
Nonetheless, I do believe that, for modern instructors, it
is important to examine various learning theories from a pragmatic point of
view: knowing how to extract and accommodate useful elements of different
learning theories to practical curriculum designing process so as to help
students learn more effectively and efficiently.
After some research, I really like the article “How People
Learn: introduction to learning theories” developed by Linda Darling-Hammond,
Kim Austin, Suzanne Orcutt, and Jim Rosso of Stanford University’s School of
Education in December, 2001, on website:http://web.stanford.edu/class/ed269/hplintrochapter.pdf.
This article not only provided quite complete, concise and
easy-to-understand description on the development of learning theories in
human history, but also raised a very important point regarding learning theories
and curriculum design:
“Today teachers utilize a variety of
classroom practices that are based on all of these ideas about learning.
Contemporary learning theory recognizes the role that both experience and
reflection play in the development of ideas and skills. Researchers and
practitioners appreciate that reinforcement and practice play a role in the
development of skills, and so do cognitive intent, effort, and reasoning. They
acknowledge the importance of developmental stages; they also recognize that
development can also be encouraged through social interaction and the
structuring of experiences within the learners’ zone of proximal development or
readiness sphere. Modern learning theories incorporate the role of culture and
other influences on experience in views of how people construct their
understandings and develop their abilities. Contemporary theories also
recognize that the content matters – the nature of the disciplines has much to
do with how they are learned and best taught. In large part because of
differences in underlying views of the purposes of education, debates continue
about “best” teaching practices. There is greater appreciation of the fact that
different strategies are useful for different kinds of learning. It is most
productive to think of these issues in terms of what kind of learning is sought
in what contexts and then deliberate about what strategies may be most
appropriate for those goals.”
If only one theory to be chosen, I will go for the
constructivist theory, although Dr. George E. Hein argued in 1991 in his “Constructivist
Learning Theory”(http://www.exploratorium.edu/ifi/resources/constructivistlearning.html)
that “there is nothing dramatically new in constructivism: the core ideas
expressed by it have been clearly enunciated by John Dewey among others, but
there is a new, widespread acceptance of this old set of ideas, and new
research in cognitive psychology to support it.”
For constructivism, a learning theory emerged over the past
three decades and having tremendous impact on learning, is derived
from cognitivism which, along with behaviorism, is considered as one
of the most influential and popular perspectives in learning theories,
constructivism does provide a larger scope and accommodation on research
efforts to explain how people learn.
According to “Concept to Classroom: Constructivism as a
Paradigm for Teaching and Learning” developed by Educational Broadcasting
Corporation at website http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/,
constructivism says that:
1. People
construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through
experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences. When we encounter
something new, we have to reconcile it with our previous ideas and experience,
maybe changing what we believe, or maybe discarding the new information as
irrelevant. In any case, we are active creators of our own knowledge. To do
this, we must ask questions, explore, and assess what we know.
2. In the
classroom, the constructivist view of learning can point towards a number of
different teaching practices. In the most general sense, it usually means
encouraging students to use active techniques (experiments, real-world problem
solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what
they are doing and how their understanding is changing. The teacher makes sure
she understands the students' preexisting conceptions, and guides the activity
to address them and then build on them.
3. Constructivist
teachers encourage students to constantly assess how the activity is helping
them gain understanding. By questioning themselves and their strategies,
students in the constructivist classroom ideally become "expert
learners." This gives them ever-broadening tools to keep learning. With a
well-planned classroom environment, the students learn HOW TO LEARN. You
might look at it as a spiral. When they continuously reflect on their
experiences, students find their ideas gaining in complexity and power, and
they develop increasingly strong abilities to integrate new information. One of
the teacher's main roles becomes to encourage this learning and reflection
process. The teacher acts as a facilitator.
References:
- Birmingham City Council (2014). BGfL Multiple Intelligences. Retrieved on October 31, 2014, from http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/questions/choose_lang.cfm
- CAST: About UDL. (n.d.). CAST: Center for Applied Special Technology. Retrieved October 31, 2014, from http://www.cast.org/udl/
- Constructivist Theory (J. Bruner). (n.d.). TIP: Theories. Retrieved October 31, 2014, from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/tip/bruner.html
