Is There The "Emotional Intelligence"?

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Are There Different Kinds of Intelligence? (3)
Is There The "Emotional Intelligence"?

A third theory that challenges the "IQ" conception of intelligence is that of "Emotional Intelligence" or "EQ", first popularised by psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman's 1995 bestseller "Emotional Intelligence: Why It can Matter More than IQ". Goleman argues that a person's emotions play a significant role in thought, making decisions and future success. He defines this form of intelligence as a set of skills that include impulse control, self-motivations, empathy and the ability to relate well to others.



Self-awareness, Goleman argues is the key to being truly emotionally intelligent, because it allow the person to exercise self-control. With sufficient self-awareness, it is possible to develop various coping mechanisms that allow a person to move from a negative emotional state to a more positive one: counting to ten as means of letting the sensation of sudden anger subside, for example.




As with Garner's theory of multiple intelligences, Goleman's EQ concept has been adopted by various schools in the United States, which use it to develop "emotional literacy" programmes, aimed at helping students learn to manage their anger, frustrations and loneliness. Children who are angry or depressed are capable of learning well, and those with long-running emotional difficulties are liable to drop out altogether. Improving the students' self-esteem and self-motivations helps them to perform better in exams.



Like IQ, each of these alternative conceptions of intelligence has been criticised. Critics of the "multiple intelligences" theory, for example, point to lack of empirical evidence supporting it.



Critics of EQ concept argue that it measures conformity rather that ability: who after all is to say when a person's anger or sadness (or other emotion) is or is not appropriate to a particular situations? EQ's sceptics also point out that scientific studies have failed to find a convincing link between high self-esteem an better academic performance.



While mindful of such criticisms, I believe there is considerable value in considering human intelligence in ways that allow us to appreciate the enormous diversity in how people think and behave.

"EMBRACING THE WIDE SKY", A Tour Across The Horizons of The Human Mind, Daniel Tammet, 2009, pages 51 - 52

Are There "Multiple Intelligences"?

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Are There Different Kinds of Intelligence? (2)
Are There "Multiple Intelligences"?

Like Sternberg, Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard University, believes that there is more than one kind of intelligence - eight, to precise - with every person having a unique blend of each. His theory of "Multiple Intelligences" was made famous by his book "Frames of Mind" first published in 1983. Using a range of criteria, including development history, evolutionary plausibility and support from experimental psychology tasks, Gardner identified these eight different intelligences:



Linguistic Intelligence: Involving both spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages and the capacity to use language to achieve certain goals. Examples: writers, poets, lawyers and speakers.




Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: The capacity to analyse problems, perform mathematical operations and investigate issues scientifically. Examples: scientists, engineers and mathematicians.



Musical Intelligence: Skill in the performance, composition and appreciation of musical patterns. Musicians of all kinds are obvious examples of this intelligence.



Body–Kinaesthetic Intelligence: Using parts of the whole of one’s body to solve problems. Examples: athletes, actors and dancers.



Spatial Intelligence: Includes having a very good sense of direction, as well as the ability to visualize and mentally manipulate objects. Examples: artists, architects and engineers.



Interpersonal Intelligence: The capacity to understand the feelings, intentions and motivations of the other people. Examples: sales-people, politicians and therapists.



Intrapersonal Intelligence: The ability to understand oneself, one's feelings, goals and motivation: Examples: philosophers, psychologists, and theologians.



Naturalistic Intelligence: The ability to draw upon certain features of the environment, to grow and nurture new things and to have a facility for interacting with animals: examples: farmer, gardeners and conservationists.

Many educators in the United States who have adopted Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences to use in their schools report improved exams results, parental participations and classroom discipline.

A Harvard-led study of forty-one schools supported using the theory, and reported that in these schools there was "a culture of hard work, respect and caring; a faculty that collaborated and learned from each other; classrooms that engaged students through constrained but meaningful choices, and a sharp focus on enabling students to produce high-quality work".

"EMBRACING THE WIDE SKY", A Tour Across The Horizons of The Human Mind, Daniel Tammet, 2009, page 50

The Intelligence Consists Of Three Main Aspects?

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Are There Different Kinds of Intelligence? (1)
The Intelligence Consists Of Three Main Aspects?

Clearly, something more than a single test score is needed to guide our evaluation of person's intelligence. I believe it makes more sense to consider intelligence as a complex phenomenon that is best described as a synthesis of various skills and abilities.

In this way a person can be considered intelligent in some respects and less so in others. For example how would you evaluate the intelligence of the following individuals?

• A Nobel Prize winner who regularly forgets where he puts his car keys.
• A thrice-divorced chess champion.
• A company chief executive with history of stress-related heart problems.
• A doctor who smokes and drink heavily.
• A brilliant musical composer plagued by creditors.

In view of such contradictions, various theorists have sought to broaden the traditional understanding of intelligence.

"The Three Main Aspects of Intelligence"

In the 1980s Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg proposed the "triarchic" (three-part) theory of intelligence, which states that intelligence consists of three main aspects:

• “Analytic Intelligence”: The ability to analyse, evaluate and compare.
• “Creative Intelligence ”: Skill in using past experience to achieve insight and deal with situations.
• “Practical Intelligence ”: The ability to adapt to, select and shape the real-world environment,

Successfully intelligent people, according to Sternberg, are those who are aware of their particular strengths and weaknesses and develop further their abilities in order to achieve success in the future.

"EMBRACING THE WIDE SKY", A Tour across the Horizons of The Human Mind, Daniel Tammet, 2009, page 49

The School 2.0: Seven Tips For Educator

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The School 2.0: Seven Tips For Educator

Empower Students to Collaborate

Here are seven strategies that will help you become a better teacher in this new digital age.

1) Do not throw technology in the classroom and hope for good things: Focus on the change in pedagogy, not technology. Learning 2.0 is about dramatically changing the relationship between a teacher and Students in the learning process. Get that right and use technology for a student focused, customized, collaborative learning environment.

2) Cut back lecturing: You do not have all the answers. Start asking students questions and listen to their answers. Listen to question students ask too. Let them discover the answer. Let them co-create a learning experience with you.

3) Empower students to collaborate: Encourage them to work with each other and show them how access the world of subject-matter experts available on the web.

4) Focus on lifelong learning, not teaching to the test: It is not what they know when they graduate that counts; it is their capacity and love for lifelong learning that is important. Do not worry if the kids forget the dates of key battles in history. They can look them up. Focus on teaching them how to learn not what to know.

5) Use technology to get to know each student and build self-passed, customized learning programs for them.

6) Design educational programs according to the eight norms: There should be choice, customization, transparency, integrity, collaboration, fun, speed and innovation in their experiences. Leverage the strengths of Net Gen culture and behaviours in project-based learning.

7) Reinvent yourself as a teacher, professor, or educator: You too can say "Now, I can hardly wait to get up in the morning to go to work"

"GROWN UP DIGITAL", How The Net Generation Is Changing Your World, Don Tapscott, 2009, pages 148

Can We Improve Our Ability To Learn? (3)

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Can We Improve Our Ability To Learn? (3)
It Is Better to Understand New Material Than Simply to Memorize It By Rote

Information is consolidated from short-term memory into long-term memory by rehearsal. Rehearsal can take form of reading over class notes (try reading them aloud) or it can take form of describing significant concepts in new words. The traditional hour-long lecture may effectively fill up working memory so that if no effort is made to consolidate material into long-term memory quickly it may all be forgotten. It is more difficult to hold material in short-term memory, so material that is not moved into long-term memory is more likely to be lost.

A good teacher can help students by refraining from pointless digressions, such digressions maybe interesting but they also fill up short-term memory with unrelated facts. Information loss seems to occur when new data actually interferes with data that is already in working memory.





It is better to understand new material than simply to memorize it by rote. If new material is well understood, then a few forgotten details can be derived from the context of what has been remembered. In contrast, if rote-memorized material is forgotten, it's gone.

The brain strives to make connections and to make sense of new information. This is why it can be helpful to fit new concepts into the context of previously well-learned concepts. If you already have a related memory, typing new material to that memory will strengthen the old memory and help to consolidate the new material. This may amount to filling in mortar around existing bricks rather than laying an entirely new row of bricks.



A wise teacher will also help students by pointing out some of the interesting associations. This can be done by asking questions or by presenting material in way those foster connections. A new student of biology, for instance will probably spend some time defining the properties of living organism. This can be a fairly dry exercise unless the teacher asks questions to make the material more relevant. One way to make the properties of a living organism more compelling is to ask students to consider whether a virus alive. Does a virus satisfy the properties of a living organism or are there features that we would all agree define life that are lacking in a virus?

"THE EVOLVING BRAIN", The known and Unknown, R. Grant Steen, 2007, pages 135 - 136