How to teach yourself Multiple Intelligence?

” Its not how smart you are, It how you are smart.”
-Howard Gardner –
(Psychologist and Professor of Neuroscience Harvard University)

Intelligence is usually defined by scores on aptitude and I.Q. tests. But there might be more to it. In fact, humans have the capability to pursue multiple intelligences. In fact, there are actually nine different intelligences that humans can possess.

What is multiple intelligence?

Human beings have very different kinds of intellectual strengths and that these strengths are very, very important in how students learn and represent things in their minds, and then how they can use them in order to show what it is that they’ve understood.

The 9 types of intelligence

Intelligence can be put into into nine categories:

1. Linguistic Intelligence: The capacity to use language to express what’s on your mind and to understand other people. Any kind of writer, orator, speaker, lawyer, or other person for whom language is an important stock in trade has great linguistic intelligence.

2. Logical/Mathematical Intelligence: The capacity to understand the underlying principles of some kind of causal system, the way a scientist or a logician does; or to manipulate numbers, quantities, and operations, the way a mathematician does.

3. Musical Rhythmic Intelligence: The capacity to think in music; to be able to hear patterns, recognize them, and perhaps manipulate them. People who have strong musical intelligence don’t just remember music easily, they can’t get it out of their minds, it’s so omnipresent.

4. Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence: The capacity to use your whole body or parts of your body (your hands, your fingers, your arms) to solve a problem, make something, or put on some kind of production. The most evident examples are people in athletics or the performing arts, particularly dancing or acting.

5. Spatial Intelligence: The ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind — the way a sailor or airplane pilot navigates the large spatial world, or the way a chess player or sculptor represents a more circumscribed spatial world. Spatial intelligence can be used in the arts or in the sciences.

6. Naturalist Intelligence: The ability to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) and sensitivity to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations). This ability was clearly of value in our evolutionary past as hunters, gatherers, and farmers; it continues to be central in such roles as botanist or chef.

7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: Having an understanding of yourself; knowing who you are, what you can do, what you want to do, how you react to things, which things to avoid, and which things to gravitate toward. We are drawn to people who have a good understanding of themselves. They tend to know what they can and can’t do, and to know where to go if they need help.

8. Interpersonal Intelligence: The ability to understand other people. It’s an ability we all need, but is especially important for teachers, clinicians, salespersons, or politicians — anybody who deals with other people.

9. Existential Intelligence: The ability and proclivity to pose (and ponder) questions about life, death, and ultimate realities.

How to teach  yourself multiple intelligences?

A student may have a good grade on the exam. We may think that he or she is learning, but a year or two later there’s nothing left. If, on the other hand, somebody has carried out an experiment himself or herself, analyzed the data, made a prediction and saw whether it came out correctly; if somebody is doing history and actually does some interviewing himself or herself, oral histories, then reads the documents, listens to it, go back and asks further questions, writes up a paper– that’s the kind of thing that’s going to adhere.

So how does one teach himself/herself the art of developing intelligence? There are many ideas and techniques  to approach this challenge. Take a look at some below

1. Try and engage actively while studying:

Integrating multiple approaches to a subject while studying can help you beat those nagging distractions playing on your minds. Try building models, online mock tests, digital practice apps, and making diagrams which would help you remain engaged in studying while keeping the monotony at bay.

2. Work on knowing your learning style:

Students who understand their abilities or are mentored towards sculpting their own zones of learning style and comfort level are better able to develop flexibility and adaptability in their thinking, and to set realistic goals . This helps to minimize learning weaknesses and maximizing strength. In this multitasking age there is definitely a paucity of time and internet has helped student reach those goals in a quick and easy way. You can take an online skill , aptitude of personality test to identify where you stand and get better grades

3. Asking different questions:

For example, after reading a story, ask yourself “questions about what your remember (Mastery), questions that require explaining and proving (Understanding), questions that require the use of their imagination (Self-Expressive), or questions that invite students to reflect on and share their feelings (Interpersonal).

We often blame our education that it is only based on memory. But memory is also an important aspect of intelligence it is this  power which helps us understand miniscule fundamentals of topics learnt in school and when revision or practiced at home puts the pieces of those fundamentals together to help us understand chapter better.

Benefits of teaching yourself multiple intelligences

Teaching yourself the art of multiple intelligences has great benefits . Some of these benefits include:

1.Academic achievement improved- Retention becomes high and art of self practice and activity engagement enhances recall which influences the overall academic scores.

2. Students can develop increased responsibility, self-direction and independence over the course of the time by practising self-learning.

3. Students can “accumulate positive educational experiences and the capability for creating solutions to problems in life.”

4. Cooperative learning skills improved in all students- Since more than 10 hours of as students life is spent with their peers, practising the art of multiple intelligence will make you highly skilled at listening, helping each other, sharing leadership & delegation in different activities and accommodating group changes

Education works effectively only when responsibility is assumed over the long run. Many may believe that intelligence is innate—when in fact hard work is necessary for any student. With new age learning paving its way into a future students lives one has to think of himself as the top scorer in order to achieve one!

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Team Meritnation