Title: Multiple Intelligence (MI) – Howard Gardner
Headings: Multiple Intelligence (MI) – Howard Gardner
Multiple Intelligence (MI) – Howard Gardner
Background of Howard Gardner
Theory Behind the Model
Multiple Intelligences
According to MI Theory, identifying each student’s intelligences has strong ramifications in the classroom. If a child's intelligence can be identified, then teachers can accommodate different children more successfully according to their orientation to learning. Teachers in traditional classrooms primarily teach to the verbal/linguistic and mathematical/logical intelligences. The nine intelligences are:
§ VISUAL/SPATIAL - children who learn best visually and organizing things spatially. They like to see what you are talking about in order to understand. They enjoy charts, graphs, maps, tables, illustrations, art, puzzles, costumes - anything eye catching.
§ VERBAL/LINGUISTIC - children who demonstrate strength in the language arts: speaking, writing, reading, listening. These students have always been successful in traditional classrooms because their intelligence lends itself to traditional teaching.
§ MATHEMATICAL/LOGICAL - children who display an aptitude for numbers, reasoning and problem solving. This is the other half of the children who typically do well in traditional classrooms where teaching is logically sequenced and students are asked to conform.
§ BODILY/KINESTHETIC - children who experience learning best through activity: games, movement, hands-on tasks, building. These children were often labeled "overly active" in traditional classrooms where they were told to sit and be still!
§ MUSICAL/RHYTHMIC - children who learn well through songs, patterns, rhythms, instruments and musical expression. It is easy to overlook children with this intelligence in traditional education.
§ INTRAPERSONAL - children who are especially in touch with their own feelings, values and ideas. They may tend to be more reserved, but they are actually quite intuitive about what they learn and how it relates to themselves.
§ INTERPERSONAL - children who are noticeably people oriented and outgoing, and do their learning cooperatively in groups or with a partner. These children may have typically been identified as "talkative" or " too concerned about being social" in a traditional setting.
§ NATURALIST - children who love the outdoors, animals, field trips. More than this, though, these students love to pick up on subtle differences in meanings. The traditional classroom has not been accommodating to these children.
§ EXISTENTIALIST - children who learn in the context of where humankind stands in the "big picture" of existence. They ask "Why are we here?" and "What is our role in the world?" This intelligence is seen in the discipline of philosophy.
Link to Multiple Intelligence Tests

Content: They ask "Why are we here?" and "What is our role in the world?" This intelligence is seen in the discipline of philosophy. The 9 Intelligences of MI Theory in table form. Link to Multiple Intelligence Tests
To help understand how you learn best, take this Multiple Intelligence Inventory test. There are just a few questions to answer and the test should take approximately five minutes to complete. http://snow.utoronto.ca/Learn2/mod3/miinventory.html
This MI test can be printed and used in a classroom to determine your students’ intelligences. http://surfaquarium.com/MIinvent.htm