Comments on: Multiple intelligences ain’t

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 04:24:15 +0000

Jo Hannah Afton is a liar. She has one daughter and one son.
The daughter never got a scholarship and never attended college. The son isnt even going to a charter school anymore and never recieved an invitation from FSU.

By: JohnL

JohnL — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:24:31 +0000

Chris, thanks for the suggestion! Your $50 challenge would work with lots of different theories, of course. It reminds me of Will Talheimer's "Learning Styles Challenge." So, readers, what standards would you accept as "sound scientific evidence" of the utility of differentiating instruction on the basis of Multiple Intelligences?

By: Chris McA

Chris McA — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:46:22 +0000

Here’s a tip that always worked for me back when I was a professor. When I would first begin discussing Gardner’s idea, I would take out a $50 bill, wave it around and put it in an envelope that I would then give to the department secretary. I told the class that I would instruct the secretary to give the $50 to the student who gave me a peer-reviewed article or juried confrence presentation that gave sound scientific evidence of Gardner’s notion.
Of course, I never needed to give the money away.
The big advantages however were that (a) it showed the students exactly where the burden of proof rightly belongs (with those making the claim for MI’s effectivness), and (b) those students motivated enough by the cash to go looking always reported back to the rest of the class their findings (or lack of), and this always had an impact on the rest of the students.
Good luck.

By: Rebecca Evers

Rebecca Evers — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:17:57 +0000

O, John, my Hero! jousting at very large dragons! I so agree and am so frustrated that at both my college and university there are WAY too many who do apply MI to K-12 teaching methods (as well as teaching our undergraduates to consider “LEARNING STYLES!!” when planning lessons,even in PE, for heavens sakes). One reason for the MI emphasis is that an art prof who studied with Gardner teaches in our ed program. I have gotten into much trouble for agruing against both ideas and asking for data-based evidence of either. Folks just shake their heads and sigh as they walk away from me —- students write comments about my very biased opinions in my evaluations. BUT I do teach in a dept where others agree with me and I/we will not give it up — may I borrow a sword?

(sorry it took so long to get around to reading this— been having a summer vacation for first time since becoming college prof)