Multiple intelligences and 21 Century skills

As young teachers what l believe worries us the most is not having generally a pleasant experience when in a classroom with our students, meaning a lesson not being explained by the teacher and understood by students, class discussions not to be present and overall to have a negative environment and make students feel unsafe. Such a nightmare!

In this blog l am going to talk about how to understand our students better and how all of this will help to create that safe environment we all wanted to have when in school.  

The theory of multiple intelligences 

Psychologist Howard Gardner proposed that people have different types of intelligence that makes them reflect and interact differently from one another with the world. For example myself, l never liked math and no matter what l did l seemed to be getting worse at it, with every try of wanting to get better but on the other hand l was very good at other subjects. Gardner's theory shows us that not only linguistic, logical mathematical intelligence is important. Humans have eight types of intelligence consisting of: Linguistic, Logical/ Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal and Naturalist.  This theory changed the traditional thinking that there is one type of intelligence that only focuses on cognitive abilities. 

Multiple intelligences theory shows that everyone has all eight intelligences at varying degrees of proficiency. We as teacher should use this information in our classrooms because we already know that students learn differently from our own experience. Each student learns a certain way, someone in a certain subject more than another with means that they have different learning abilities and preferences. We should be able to understand which of the intelligences in a person is stronger than others and works in that field and use it in both their and our advantage. Understanding students means understanding what to fix in your classroom and by knowing what should be made better we will definitely have that positive class environment we are looking for.

Lastly l want to talk about 21st Century Skills. I have a nephew and just by comparing myself when l was his age w l can find so many things that l would never have been able to do then. With the technology development just seems that generations are becoming smarter and smarter. We will definitely have bright students that will know everything about technology in our classes in the future and we should focus on building the learning skills to provide them the environment they need. Teachers will have a great impact in their future by combining learning skills such as critical thinking, communication and collaboration with literacy skills such as information and media for students to use them as life skills in progress and productivity in life but also in leadership.