Training for Multiple Intelligences

In the introduction to Exchange Press's exciting new resource for trainers, Engaging Adult Learners Using Multiple Intelligences Toolkit, Constant Hine talks about why it is important to factor in learning approaches when conducting training...

"In my early school years I found learning difficult and challenging for a variety of reasons: a speech impediment and difficulty learning to read resulted in being pulled out of class to work with a learning and speech specialist. I am interpersonally and kinesthetically intelligent. In a traditional classroom I was frequently in trouble for being out of my seat and talking to and engaging with others, especially if I did not understand the content or wasn’t engaged. Yes, I was one of ‘those’ kids – bored, disruptive, and disengaged.

"Traditional teaching strategies in schools are typically verbal/linguistic and logical/mathematical, which definitely don’t meet the needs of many learners who have different ways of learning – for children and adults alike. In many learning environments there is still a stigma about being a non-traditional learner and an implication that ‘something is wrong’ if you don’t succeed. It is all too easy to think that if others don’t learn the way you do, then something must be wrong with them, as learners. It was this unsupportive educational culture that inspired me to become a teacher; I instinctively knew it didn’t have to be this way. I wanted to learn and didn’t believe it really had to be that hard. It has been one of my passions to learn, research and practice differentiated, individualized teaching strategies and to focus on ensuring that learning occurs for both children and adults, rather than focusing only on teaching content.

"My inquiry, discovery, and focus on learning led me to appreciate and incorporate teaching and learning strategies based on Howard Gardner’s paradigm of Multiple Intelligences. Gardner’s model is useful for developing a systematic, strength-based approach to engage all learners."

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