Intelligence is a complex topic. An overview of some of this complexity is provided in Hunt (1995).
Howard Gardner, David Perkins, and Robert Sternberg have all been quite successful in helping spread knowledge about the meaning of "intelligence" and applications of this knowledge to education. The following material reflects the work of these three researchers and is quoted from Chapter 4 of the book:
Moursund, D.G. (1999). Project-based Learning Using Information Technology. Eugene, Oregon: ISTE.
The study and measurement of intelligence has been an important research topic for nearly 100 years IQ is a complex concept, and researchers in this field argue with each other about the various theories that have been developed. There is no clear agreement as to what constitutes IQ or how to measure it. There is an extensive and continually growing collection of research papers on the topic. Howard Gardner (1983, 1993), Robert Sternberg (1988, 1997), and David Perkins (1995) have written widely sold books that summarize the literature and present their own specific points of view.
The following definition is a composite from various authors. Intelligence is a combination of the ability to:
This definition of intelligence is a very optimistic one. It says that each of us can become more intelligent. We can become more intelligent through study and practice, through access to appropriate tools, and through learning to make effective use of these tools (Perkins, 1995).
PBL can be used as a vehicle in which students can use and improve their intelligence. More detail on the work of Gardner, Sternberg, and Perkins is given in the next three subsections.
Some researchers in the field of intelligence have long argued that people have a variety of different intelligences. A person may be good at learning languages and terrible at learning music--or vice versa. A single number (a score on an IQ test) cannot adequately represent the complex and diverse capabilities of a human being.
Howard Gardner has proposed a theory of multiple intelligences. He originally identified seven components of intelligence (Gardner, 1983). He argues that these intelligences are relatively distinct from each other and that each person has some level of each of these seven intelligences. More recently, he has added an eighth intelligence to his list (Educational Leadership, 1997).
Many PBL-using teachers have studied the work of Howard Gardner and use some of his ideas in their teaching. For example, in creating a team of students to do a particular project, a teacher may select a team whose collective "highest" talents encompass most of the eight areas of intelligence identified by Gardner. The teacher may encourage a team to divide up specific tasks in line with specific high levels of talents found on a team. Alternatively, a teacher may encourage or require that team members not be allowed to work in their areas of highest ability in order to encourage their development of knowledge and skills in other areas.
The following table lists the eight intelligences identified by Howard Gardner. It provides some examples of the types of professionals who exhibit a high level of an intelligence. The eight intelligences are listed in alphabetical order.
Intelligence Examples Discussion Bodily-kinesthetic Dancers, athletes, surgeons,
crafts people The ability to use one's
physical body well. Interpersonal Sales people, teachers,
clinicians, politicians, religious
leaders The ability to sense other's
feelings and be in tune with others. Intrapersonal People who have good insight
into themselves and make effective use of their
other intelligences Self-awareness. The ability to
know your own body and mind. Linguistic Poets, writers, orators,
communicators The ability to communicate well,
perhaps both orally and in writing, perhaps in
several languages. Logical-mathematical Mathematicians,
logicians The ability to learn higher
mathematics. The ability to handle complex logical
arguments. Musical Musicians, composers The ability to learn, perform,
and compose music. Naturalistic Biologists,
naturalists The ability to understand
different species, recognize patterns in nature,
classify natural objects. Spatial Sailors navigating without
modern navigational aids, surgeons, sculptors,
painters The ability to know where you
are relative to fixed locations. The ability to
accomplish tasks requiring three-dimensional
visualization and placement of your hands or other
parts of your body.
Dancers, athletes, surgeons, crafts people
The ability to use one's physical body well.
Sales people, teachers, clinicians, politicians, religious leaders
The ability to sense other's feelings and be in tune with others.
People who have good insight into themselves and make effective use of their other intelligences
Self-awareness. The ability to know your own body and mind.
Poets, writers, orators, communicators
The ability to communicate well, perhaps both orally and in writing, perhaps in several languages.
The ability to learn higher mathematics. The ability to handle complex logical arguments.
The ability to learn, perform, and compose music.
The ability to understand different species, recognize patterns in nature, classify natural objects.
Sailors navigating without modern navigational aids, surgeons, sculptors, painters
The ability to know where you are relative to fixed locations. The ability to accomplish tasks requiring three-dimensional visualization and placement of your hands or other parts of your body.
You might want to do some introspection. For each of the eight intelligences in the Howard Gardner list, think about your own level of talents and performance. For each intelligence, decide if you have an area of expertise that makes substantial use of the intelligence. For example, perhaps you are good at music. If so, is music the basis of your vocation?
Students can also do this type of introspection, and it can become a routine component of PBL lessons. Students can come to understand that they are more naturally gifted in some areas than in others, but that they have some talent in all of the eight areas identified by Howard Gardner. Curriculum and instruction can be developed to help all students make progress in enhancing their talents in each of these eight areas of intelligence.
Many teachers have provided testimonial evidence that PBL encourages participation on the part of their students who do not have a high level of "school smarts." They report that some of their students who were not doing well in school have become actively engaged and experienced a high level of success in working on projects. These observations are consistent with and supportive of the research of Robert Sternberg.
As noted earlier in this chapter, different researchers have identified different components of intelligence. Sternberg (1988, 1997) focuses on just three main components:
Sternberg provides examples of people who are quite talented in one of these areas but not so talented in the other two. In that sense, his approach to the field of intelligence is somewhat like Howard Gardner's. However, you can see that Sternberg does not focus on specific components of intelligence that are aligned with various academic disciplines. He is far more concerned with helping people develop components of intelligence that will help them to perform well in whatever they chose to do.
Sternberg strongly believes that intelligence can be increased by study and practice. Quite a bit of his research focuses on such endeavors. Some of Sternberg's work focuses specifically on "street smarts" versus "school smarts." He notes that some people are particularly talented in one of these two areas, and not in the other. This observation is consistent with the work of Lev Vygotsky (Fosnot, 1996) who argues that the type of learning that goes on outside of school is distinctly different than the type of learning that goes on in school. While some students are talented in both informal and formal education, others are much more successful in one rather than the other. A teacher who is skillful in developing PBL can help students to design projects that are consistent with their learning abilities and interests.
In his 1992 book, Smart Schools, David Perkins analyzes a number of different educational theories and approaches to education. His analysis is strongly supportive of Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Perkins' book contains extensive research-based evidence that education can be considerably improved by more explicit and appropriate teaching for transfer, focusing on higher-order cognitive skills, and the use of project-based learning.
Perkins (1995) examines a large number of research studies both on the measurement of IQ and of programs of study designed to increase IQ. He presents detailed arguments that IQ has three major components or dimensions.
There is substantial evidence to support the belief that a child's neural intelligence can be adversely affected by the mother's use of drugs such as alcohol and cocaine during pregnancy. Lead (such as from lead-based paint) can do severe neural damage to a person. Vitamins, or the lack thereof, can affect neural intelligence.
Moreover, there is general agreement that neural intelligence has a "use it or lose it" characteristic. It is clear that neural intelligence can be maintained and, indeed, increased, by use.
Experiential intelligence is based on years and years of accumulating knowledge and experience in both informal and formal learning environments. Such knowledge and experience can lead to a high level of expertise in one or more fields. People who live in "rich" learning environments have a significant intelligence advantage over people who grow up in less stimulating environments. Experiential intelligence can be increased by such environments.
Reflexive intelligence can be thought of as a control system that helps to make effective use of neural intelligence and experiential intelligence. A person can learn strategies that help to make more effective use of neural intelligence and experiential intelligence. The habits of mind included under reflexive intelligence can be learned and improved. Metacognition and other approaches to reflecting about one's cognitive processes can help.
End of materials quoted from: Moursund, D.G. (1999). Project-based Learning Using Information Technology. Eugene, Oregon: ISTE.
Quoting from Gardner [Online]:
Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor in Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds positions as Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, Adjunct Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, and Co-Director of Harvard Project Zero. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. He has been awarded eighteen honorary degrees--including degrees from Princeton University, McGill University and Tel Aviv University on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the state of Israel. In 1990, he was the first American to receive the University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award in education. In 2000 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Quoting from Perkins [Online]:
David Perkins received his Ph.D. in mathematics and artificial intelligence from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. As a graduate student he also was a founding member of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The project was initially concerned with the psychology and philosophy of education in the arts, and later broadened to encompass cognitive development and cognitive skills in both humanistic and scientific domains.
The following quote from Sternberg's resume provides a good overview of his approach to the study of intelligence.
My research is motivated primarily by a theory of successful intelligence, which attempts to account for the intellectual sources of individual differences that enable people to achieve success in their lives, given the sociocultural context in which they live. Successfully intelligent people discern their strengths and weaknesses, and then figure out how to capitalize on their strengths, and to compensate for or remediate their weaknesses. Successfully intelligent individuals succeed in part because they achieve a functional balance among a "triarchy" of abilities: analytical abilities, which are used to analyze, evaluate, judge, compare and contrast; creative abilities, which are used to create, invent, discover, imagine; practical abilities, which are used to apply, utilize, implement, and activate. Successfully intelligent people are not necessarily high in all three of these abilities, but find a way effectively to exploit whatever pattern of abilities they may have. Moreover, all of these abilities can be further developed. A fundamental idea underlying this research is that conventional notions of intelligence and tests of intelligence miss important kinds of intellectual talent, and overweigh what are sometimes less important kinds of intellectual talent.
The article (Sternberg, Summer 1997) is particularly interesting to the field of IT and education, as it focuses on how technology (including calculators and computers,m but also other forms of technology such as radio and TV) has been increasing intelligence.
Carvin, Andy. Dr. Howard Gardner [Online]. Accessed 4/17/01: http://edweb.gsn.org/edref.mi.gardner.html.
Andy Carvin is a Senior Associate of the Benton Foundation. He writes about many and varied topics in the field of technology in education and in other areas.
Gardner, Howard [Online]. Accessed 4/18/01: http://pzweb.harvard.edu/PIs/HG.htm.
Harvard Project Zero [Online]. Accessed 4/17/01: http://pzweb.harvard.edu/Default.htm. Quoting from the Website:
Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels. Quoting from the Website, some of the goals of Project Zero include:
Hunt, Earl (July-August 1995). The Role of Intelligence
in Modern Society [Online]. The American
Scienctist. Accessed 4/19/01: http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/articles/
A central question in the debate is whether or not mental competence is a single ability, applicable in many settings, or whether competence is produced by specialized abilities, which a person may or may not possess independently. Almost equally important is the question of how cognitive skill, as evaluated by IQ tests, translates into everyday performance. Popular presentations on both sides of these questions leave the impression that these questions have simple answers. They do not. My goal in this essay is to discuss different theories of how intelligence is related to performance in modern society. The plural was chosen intentionally, Although we know a good deal about individual differences in human cognition, there is no monolithic, agreed-upon, all-purpose theory to organize these facts, nor is there likely to be one. There are a number of different theories that are neither right nor wrong, but are useful for different purposes.
Learning and Intelligence [Online]. Accessed 4/18/01: http://www.newhorizons.org/trm_intelligence.html. Quoting from the Website:
There is little agreement on a general definition of intelligence, but most people would agree that it involves, at least, the ability to learn and apply what has been learned. Appropriate to our time, Robert Sternberg adds further that it involves the ability to adapt to the environment, or modify the environment, or seek out and create new environments.
Perkins, David [Online]. Accessed 4/17/01: http://pzweb.harvard.edu/PIs/DP.htm.
Sternberg, Robert J. (Summer 1997). Technology Changes
Intelligence: Societal Implications and Soaring IQs.
TechnosQuarterly [Online]. Accessed 4/17/01:
( Brief Abstract) Technology is changing society in many ways--some quite unexpected. It's been credited with much of the dramatic rise in IQ scores over the past 30 years. But while technology's effects on human intelligence measurement may be positive, there are some distressing and potentially negative repercussions. Are there inevitable social tradeoffs for higher IQs?
Sternberg is the author of a huge number of books and articles. See, for example:Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2000). Teaching for successful intelligence. Arlington Heights, IL: Skylight Training and Publishing Inc.
Thiagarajan Sivasailam. Thiagi's Thinking on Experiential Learning (and its benefits) [Online]. Accessed 10/30/01: http://www.squarewheels.com/articles2/thiagi.html.
This relatively short article gives a brief introduction to seven principles of experiential learning. Quoting from the article, they are:
Intelligence has been defined and studied under a number of different rubrics, among them individual differences, cognitive abilities, and aptitudes. Probably the most influential developments in our recent understanding of these concepts have come from educational and psychological researchers associated with cognitive psychology. Three of those individuals, Robert Sternberg, Howard Gardner, and John Horn serve as a representative sample of researchers who have made significant gains in our current conceptions of intelligence. In the following paragraphs I briefly summarize each one's conceptualization of intellectual abilities.