Using Multiple Intelligences to Motivate Students.

The framework for this reflection is modeled after educational philosopher John Dewey's How We Think. (1) In this work, Dewey outlines how teachers should train students to "think well." He asserts knowledge comes from human interaction with the world. To be able to think well, students should be taught inductive and deductive reasoning, how to interpret facts, and how to think both in abstract and concrete terms. Reflection is key to understanding why people believe what they believe and what supports those beliefs. Part of helping students learn is understanding that intelligence comes in many forms, and teachers should better understand how their students best learn. Hence, in order to teach children to "think well," teachers must understand the different modalities of intelligence and teach to the student's type of intelligence. The purpose of this reflection is to better understand how multiple intelligences can be applied to better motivate students to achieve more, particularly in social studies classrooms.

Multiple Intelligence Theory can be summarized as the belief that intelligence is not a single construct that can be contained by an IQ score, but a multifaceted construct that all individuals possess to varying degrees. The focus of this paper will be on kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms, as these are the grade levels that the author currently teaches.

The very real world problem is that some students do not seem to have a growth mindset, causing them to quit when activities are challenging instead of putting more effort forth because they think it will not make a difference. The growth mindset can be summarized as the belief that individuals can increase their level(s) of intelligence with effort. In other words, intelligence is not as fixed as an individual's IQ score may suggest. There is a positive correlation between belief in a growth mindset and higher achievement, whether that belief is articulated as "growth mindset" or equivalent terms. Therefore, because of this lack of belief in a growth mindset, students do not achieve their full potential.

Ultimately, the goal of this paper is to examine how teaching students about Multiple Intelligence Theory and the Growth Mindset can lead to increased motivation and better academic achievement. A literature review provides a background to the relevant theories of both supporters and opponents. The methods section describes the instructional strategies that the author used with the students. The results section addresses the outcomes of those instructional strategies in greater detail. Finally, the discussion section is where possible meanings and significance of these outcomes are addressed, including future studies, to best identify an ideal way to present multiple intelligences and the growth mindset to help students reach their full potential.

The following literature review provides the foundation for this paper. The intent was to take what was read and apply it to the classes that this author currently teaches. It was a step in an ongoing process to provide the best education possible for the students in those and future classes. As such, the objective was not to take quantifiable pretest or posttest data at this time. Literature Review

A key question to this study is, how can multiple intelligence theory improve motivation to improve achievement? To understand this question better, the literature review began by examining multiple intelligence theory and then diving into its possible role in improving motivation and achievement. Prior to the 1980s, intelligence was assumed to be a single construct, which could be summarized in an individual's IQ score. The higher the IQ score, the smarter the person. In the early 1980s, Howard Gardner of Harvard University identified seven types of Multiple Intelligence Theory, and that number grew to nine then eleven types of intelligence over the years. (2) Educators need to be aware of all types of intelligence if they are to be able to reach all students. The eleven types of intelligence currently identified are:

-Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: the ability to use one's bodily motions and the capacity to handle objects skillfully, including the ability to to use the entire body to express ideas and feelings.

-Interpersonal intelligence: the ability to communicate effectively in diverse social and cultural settings, including the ability to perceive others' moods, motivations, and emotions.

-Intrapersonal intelligence: self-reflective capabilities, understanding one's self, one's own strengths and weaknesses, the ability to predict one's own reactions and emotions, and acting on that self-knowledge to modify errors.

-Logical-mathematical intelligence: the ability to deal with logic, abstractions, reasoning and numbers.

-Musical-rhythmic intelligence: the ability and sensitivity to deal with sounds, rhythms, tones, and music, including the ability to appreciate, distinguish, compose, and perform various types of music.

-Visual-spatial intelligence: the ability to do activities which require spatial judgment. People with high spatial intelligence are able to visualize well in the mind's eye, which helps them to be able to see an image or a situation and assess the areas that can be modified to transform the appearance.

-Verbal-linguistic intelligence: the ability to use spoken or written language like reading, writing, and telling stories.

-Existential intelligence: the ability to contemplate phenomena or questions beyond sensory data, including an appreciation of spirituality and questions about life and the universe.

-Naturalistic intelligence: the ability to understand nature and interact with natural surroundings such as classifying species or identifying natural phenomena to develop skills in real life.

-Laser intelligence: the ability to create and generate inventions.

-Mental-search intelligence: the ability to search and scan information. (3)

The first seven were the original seven intelligences: bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, logical-mathematical, musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, and verbal-linguistic. These seven include the two to three intelligences that are typically emphasized in schools: logical-mathematical, verbal-linguistic, and sometimes visual-spatial. Certain classes may address other intelligences like bodily-kinesthetic intelligence in physical education classes or musical-rhythmic in music classes. However, students who perform well in these types of tasks are not perceived as "smart" in the same way that students who perform well in Math or Reading classes. The same is true for Existential and Naturalist intelligences, which were added in 2009, and Laser and Mental-search, which became generally accepted around 2016.

These eleven are the ones proposed by Gardner and the ones that will be focused on in this reflection. Other researchers have proposed additional intelligences, most notably emotional intelligence and political intelligence. Mayer and Salovey (4) first coined the term "emotional intelligence" in 1990, as a way to describe a person's capacity to understand, control, and express one's emotions, and handle interpersonal relationships empathetically. The origin of the concept of political intelligence is typically attributed to Machiavelli. (5) Political intelligence can be defined as the knowledge of the actors in a political arena, the ability to anticipate their course(s) of action, and the capacity to develop a strategic course of action to address them. The reason this reflection will not focus on these two intelligences is that they are often perceived as a specific combination of one or more of Gardner's eleven. Emotional intelligence is closely related to intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence and political intelligence is the combination of logical-mathematical and interpersonal intelligences. (6)

While a number of factors, including age...