Overview
In this activity, students explore Garder’s Theory of multiple intelligences through the following steps:
- Each team of 2-3 students chooses one of the intelligences from the theory (e.g., musical) and researches it online to build a short PowerPoint presentation for the class.
- Each team presents their type of intelligence to the class.
- Individually, students fill out a summary table based on the information presented by each team.
- Students conduct a self-assessment using the theory and reflect on how well it captures their strengths and weaknesses.
Instructional Objectives
Students will:
- Describe a chosen intelligence
- Give examples of its utility in everyday life
- Analyze how well Gardner’s theory reflects their strengths as a student/citizen/employee
Contributor's Notes
Benefits
- Encourages students to apply theory to practice
- Builds appreciation of the complexity and diversity of intelligence
- Encourages student interaction and reflection
Challenges
- Depending on the sources students use for their research, they might present inaccurate information. It is advisable for the teacher to validate presentations before they are shared with peers.
- Depending on team composition, some might present higher quality information than others. One way to mitigate this problem is for the teacher to make the teams.
Tips
- A motivational strategy is to include presented information on an upcoming evaluation (e.g., a quiz).
- After students finish their self-assessment, the teacher may create a class intelligence profile based on everyone’s scores.
Published: 18/06/2024
Copyright: © 2024 Salonine. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication on this website is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.