Sternberg, Gardner, and Diverse Learning in the Classroom

Sternberg, Gardner, and Diverse Learning in the Classroom

Introduction

If there has been one overarching theme in this course, it has been the theme of diversity. From examining the different ways that students develop physically in Module 2, to the different ways that they develop morally in Module 4, to the multiple ways in which they acquire and process information and demonstrate their mastery of knowledge in many of the other modules, we as student teachers are left with the overwhelming sense that no two learners are alike, and that there is no one theory of physical, emotional, or cognitive development that we can learn or apply to all of the possible learning situations that we may find ourselves in when we embark on our education careers.

A good example of this can be found in the Eggen and Kauchak (2005) text. Here, the authors discuss intelligence, and offer two theories in binary opposition for us to consider: Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI), and Robert Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence. Both theories seek to help us understand how intelligence is formed and made manifest; they give us tools with which we can structure learning activities and then assess them. Of the two theories, Eggen and Kauchak single out Gardner's for the most criticism--while Sternberg's model takes into account the mental, environmental, and experiential components that make up intelligence, they argue, Gardner's never accounts for the way that information is processed. Gardner, they claim, does not account for the way that we "maintain, organize, and coordinate information" (p. 120). MI can account for how we acquire knowledge and how we demonstrate that knowledge to others, but it cannot account for the mental processes that we use to store it in our memory.

In reply, Gardner (2004) has himself criticized Stenberg's model for the very same reasons: that Sternberg, too, fails to acknowledge the role of MI in information processing. While acknowledging that both theorists "agree... on our criticism of standard intelligence theory," Gardner goes on to argue that Sternberg finds it "immaterial to his theory whether the student is processing words or pictures of bodily information or material from the personal or natural world." In other words, Gardner claims that Sternberg "assumes that the same components will operate, irrespective of the kinds of material that is being processed."

In this paper, I want to suggest that the two theories are not opposites but that they are complementary. My observations of different school age adolescents suggest that Gardner's model illuminates areas of Sternberg's theory, that it explains some areas of intelligence that influence the mental, environmental, and experiential processes that together enable us to successfully acquire, maintain and demonstrate knowledge. More, however, I want to show how implementation of either theory can have a tremendous success in classroom teaching (and, conversely, ignorance of it can lead to disengaged and unmotivated learners), and that there are some steps we, as educators, can take to implement intelligence theory-based pedagogy in our teaching and assessment strategies.

Gardner and Sternberg: A Comparative Analysis

Gardner's Intelligences, I argue, can be applied to all three elements of Sternberg's Triarchic Theory. The processing components can draw on different intelligences at all stages. A learner who is predominantly spatial, for example, may seek to find or create pictures that illustrate an idea to be learned; then, if possible, the learner will seek to demonstrate competency of the material by depicting it visually. Metacognitively, too, the student can be encouraged to develop learning strategies that draw on visual techniques, such as producing charts, diagrams, or maps to guide and monitor learning of a given concept.

Learners can also be encouraged to link environment with their strongest intelligences; students who favor language as their primary learning tool could supplement instruction with books on tape or recorded lectures, be asked to deliver exams orally rather than in written format and, if such an accommodation was not possible, could select out of the environment altogether. Such a possibility, it should be noted, is always to be expected in this era of standardized testing; as Sternberg, Torff & Grigorenko (1998) concluded in a study of triarchic teaching that found that students performed significantly better on tests which measured performance non-traditionally (through testing which measured students analytical, creative, and practical thinking of a given topic) and traditionally (though multiple choice tests) "too often, teaching and assessment do not match. For example, one might teach to broad aspects of intelligence but then assess students' achievement for only memory-based outcomes." As such, they are in perfect agreement with Gardner (2004), who says that both he and Sternberg "reject the focus on a single scholastic intelligence that is measured by a certain kind of short answer test." Consequently, the students who are not encouraged to use their intelligences at any phase of the learning process, or who find their intelligences at odds with the learning environment, will always be at risk of selecting out of that environment.

Finally, Gardner and Sternberg's theories intersect in the third area of the triarchic model, where intelligence is linked to experience. Here, learners rely on metacognition again by relating new information to the schemas they already have in place, and developing new schemas when the old ones become outdated. So a predominantly musical learner will relate new information to what he or she already knows about music (say, linking a concept in mathematics with knowledge of intervals or time signatures) then produce new patterns with that information (such as using the knowledge to form an equation that could be applied to solving other problems or predicting intervals in another piece of music).

In all, the theories are not as far apart as they seem; more, they provide an indictment of traditional learning and assessment that should force us as teachers to be deeply reflective of our pedagogies.

Theories of Intelligence in the Classroom: A Reflection on Field Observations

My field observations this semester exposed the best and worst aspects of learning and assessment that Sternberg and Gardner discuss in their work. The problem-solving game of Pretzel that I observed at Sylvan Beach Elementary School in Observation Report #2 was a wonderful illustration of Gardner's

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