Title: Howard Gardner Biography and Theories
Headings: Howard Gardner Biography and Theories
Howard Gardner Biography and Theories
Brief Biography of Howard Gardner
Career and Theories
Howard Gardener's Awards
Selected Publications
Multiple Intelligences vs. Learning Styles
A Word From Verywell

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Brief Biography of Howard Gardner
Howard Gardner was born on July 11, 1943 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He described himself as "a studious child who gained much pleasure from playing the piano." He completed his post-secondary education at Harvard, earning his undergraduate degree in 1965 and his Ph.D. in 1971. 3 ﻿
While he had originally planned to study law, he was inspired to study developmental psychology by the works of Jean Piaget. He also cited the mentoring he received from the famous psychoanalyst Erik Erikson as part of the reason why he set his sights on psychology. "My mind was really opened when I went to Harvard College and had the opportunity to study under individuals—such as psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, sociologist David Riesman, and cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner—who were creating knowledge about human beings. That helped set me on the course of investigating human nature, particularly how human beings think," he later explained. 4 ﻿
Career and Theories
After spending time working with two very different groups, normal and gifted children, and brain-damaged adults, Gardner began developing a theory designed to synthesize his research and observations. In 1983, he published Frames of Mind which outlined his theory of multiple intelligences. According to this theory, people have many different ways of learning.