Do You Think My Personal Concept Of Intelligence As A Society Is Too Narrow?

Learning Styles/Learning Preferences

Education psychologists do not believe in the term “learning styles”. Psychologists do not believe in the term “learning styles” because these conceptions of learning styles have little research support and are based on solid studies. “But I believe learning preferences is a more accurate label because most of the research describes preferences for particular learning environments- for example, where, when, with who, or with what lighting, food, or music you like to study” (Woolfolk, pg.121, 2011).

Language and Labeling

a. Some of the pros of labeling are educators argue that for younger students, being labeled as “special needs” protects the child. Some of the cons of labeling students is a controversial

My personal concept of intelligence came from the knowledge I have learned and being able to apply my knowledge to different experiences and situations. Some characteristic that demonstrate intelligence is creativity, determination, listener, adaptable, curious, open minded, and lack of bias. My notion of intelligence came from my experiences and encounters with people I believed to be intelligent, especially my experiences with school. After reading chapter four I do not see intelligence differently, I think the book goes hand in hand with my beliefs and opinions about intelligence.

2. Do you think that our understanding of intelligence as a society is too narrow? Explain. Yes, I think our understanding of intelligence as a society is too narrow. I think society focuses on intelligence to be those people who earn the highest GPA’s or score the highest on standardized tests. Society ignores the fact that there are a lot of intelligent people out there and that a letter grade or a GPA shouldn’t define how smart someone is. There are people who can memorize anything to do well on a test and then they forget the information the next day. Society misses the part where people apply their knowledge to real life

A teacher can avoid judging students as intelligent or unintelligent by treating everyone the same and giving every student equal opportunity to be successful. The dangers of making such a judgment can leave the students feeling defeated. This can lead to those students having low self-esteem about themselves. This could also make the intelligent students feel more special and superior in the classroom.

4. I think Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory is great, because people tend to be better at different things. The theory goes hand in hand with scholastic performance. Also, this theory expands our thinking about abilities and avenues for teaching. Many educators believe that multiple intelligences practices increase achievement for all students and improve both student discipline and parent participation (Woolfolk, pg. 117, 2011).

5. I think this theory is great because it showed that teaching with this model as a basis tends to result in significant improvement in academic performance. Also, I think this theory is great because this intelligence is about life success based on your definition of success in your cultural context. (Woolfolk, pg.117,