The Amazing Learner: Understanding the Developing Child 6-9 & 9-12 and the Importance of Intelligence

1. Welcome TO… THE AMAZING LEARNER Utilizing the beautiful weavings of Sheila Hicks as metaphor

2. The Developing Child 6-9 Most important things! 9-12 Most important things! • Social beings • Eager to please adults • Imagination • Capable (love) big work • Sense of justice • Need rules/discipline • Develop moral compass • Reasoning, analytical • Physical changes competence • Changing in all ways • Peers are important • Higher level reasoning • Growing self-awareness • Independent risk taker • Stable physical devel • Imagination – Abstraction • Self-identity/place in world

3. WE WONDER…. 6-9 9-12 • Sassy? • Diverse & Individual needs? • Inner voice • Learning challenges • How/when to respond • Patient, push, step in • Fears? • Leaders, Attraction, Power relationships • Challenging adults • Gender effect

4. Why are YOU important? What ROLE do you play?

5. How are they related? • Intelligence • Brain • Body • Emotions • Mind • Creativity • Senses • Cognition • Movement

6. Why do we have a BRAIN? What do you know about the Brain?

7. Back to Biology • Body Knows All: Senses, Movement, Body Maps ~ Robert Sylwester • Hand makes the Mind ~ Frank Wilson • We Learn because We Feel ~ Antonio Damasio, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang • Metaphor and Meaning making….as if

8. “The human hand, so delicate and so complicated not only allows the mind to reveal itself but it enables the whole being to enter into special relationships with its environment. We might even say that man takes possession of his environment with his hands.” Maria Montessori

9. WHAT IS INTELLIGNCE? Group definitions

10. Defining Intelligence • Adaptive – used flexibly to respond to a variety of situations and problems • Use of Prior Knowledge (PK) – Involved in analyzing and understanding situations effectively • Learning ability – People who are intelligent in a particular domain, learn new information and behaviors more quickly and easily than people who are less intelligent in those domains • Interaction and Coordination of many different mental processes • Culture specific – “Intelligent” behavior in one culture is not necessarily intelligent in another culture

11. Intelligence broadly defined The ability to apply past knowledge and experiences flexibly to accomplish challenging new tasks.

12. INTELLIGENCE: Theoretical Perspectives LUMPERS SPLITTERS • Charles Spearman • Raymond Catterall • Alfred Binet • Howard Gardner • Robert Sternberg • David Perkins

13. “g” factor • 1900s- Charles Spearman • Intelligence comprises both • A single, pervasive reasoning ability (a general factor) used on a wide variety of tasks • A number of narrow abilities (specific factors) involved in executing particular tasks • Specific factors correlate to a general factor, but not necessarily to each other • Raymond Catterall – 1960s • Fluid intelligence – ability to acquire knowledge quickly and adapt to new situations effectively • Crystallized intelligence – K and skills accumulated from experiences, schooling, and culture

14. Measuring Intelligence • Tests of General Intelligence – identify people with special needs/exceptionalities: delays, academic difficulties; what they have learned and deduced from their general everyday experiences • Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children • Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales • Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test • IQ Scores –comparison of mental age with chronological age; • comparison of performance on test with other’s in same age-group • Responses get increasingly abstract and complex • Specific Ability Tests – Aptitude assesses a persons potential to learn in a particular content domain; • specific aspects of cognitive processes; • can be used to identify learning difficulties

15. Intelligence: Nature & Nurture Interaction and Influence • Heredity establishes a range rather than a precise figure • Genetics expression is influenced by environmental conditions • Both/And • Children chose environments and experiences as they get older – niche-picking

16. Effects of Heredity and Environment on Intelligence • Evidence of Heredity Influences (Nature) • Twin Studies • Adoption Studies • Evidence of Environmental Influences (Nurture) • Early Nutrition • Toxic Substances • Home Environment • Early Intervention • Formal Schooling • Flynn Effect

17. The most successful people in every field share an ability to think in ways that we seldom teach in the classroom. Sparks of Genius~Robert S. Root-Bernstein & Michele Root-Bernstein

18. Cognitive Science 1980’s Both Nature and Nurture Both Universal and Unique Both Diversity and Unity Both Quantitative and Qualitative

19. Howard Gardner • Harvard Project Zero – Founding member • I was always interested in the mind • Multiple Intelligences - Ability to: • Linguistic – use language effectively • Musical- compose, comprehend and appreciate music • Logical-Mathematical – reason logically, especially in math and science • Spatial – notice details of what one sees, imagine and manipulate visual objects in ones’ mind • Kinesthetic – use one’s body skillfully • Naturalistic – recognize patterns in nature and differences among natural objects and life-forms • Interpersonal – awareness of one’s won feelings, motives, and desires • Intrapersonal – recognize patterns in nature and differences among natural objects and life forms

20. Robert Sternberg • Interplay of three factors: Environmental Context, Prior experiences, Cognitive processes • Triarchic Theory • Three domains • Analytical intelligence – making sense of analyzing, contrasting, and evaluating the kinds of information and problems often seen in academic settings/intelligence tests • Creative intelligence – involves imagination, invention, and synthesis of ideas within the context of new situation • Practical intelligence – applying knowledge and skills effectively to manage and respond to everyday problem and social situations

21. David Perkins • Harvard Project Zero – Founding member • Conception of mind that emphasizes the interlocking relationships among thinking, learning, and understanding. • Meaningful learning aims at understanding and depends on thinking with and about what one is learning.

22. REFLECTION… LUMPER? OR SPLITTER?

23. GOOD NEWS!NEW BLOOMS Thinking!

24. Blooms Cognitive Levels • In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior important in learning. • During the 1990's a new group of cognitive psychologist, lead by Anderson (a former student of Bloom's), updated the taxonomy reflecting relevance to 21st century work. • Changes • Nouns to Verbs to describe the different levels of the taxonomy. • Top two levels are essentially exchanged from the Old to the New version.

25. RevisedBlooms Taxonomy Cognitive Comparison Original Blooms Taxonomy

26. Survey says… • 78% of Parents believe that the ability to think and the ability to reason are more important than academic achievement. Source: Frank Luntz, National Conference of State Legislatures 2006 Annual Meeting Presentation

28. REVISED BLOOMS: New Words ~ New Order

29. Survey says… • Nearly three-fourths of Americans ranked “creativity/innovation” as among the top five applied skills projected to increase in importance for future graduates. Source: National Conference Board 2006 • 98% of Americans believe that imagination, that is, the ability to visualize new possibilities for thought and action, is critical to innovation and an individual’s success in a global knowledge-based economy. Source: Partnership for 21st Century Skills National Poll, fall 2007

30. COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE -2000

31. Brain is a parallel processor. • Involve Critical and Creative thinking • Internal & External processes • Visual and Verbal • Physical and Social

32. Search for meaning is innate • Goal of biology is self-preservation; homeostatis, balance • Movement is essential: We need a brain because we have a muscle system – move toward opportunities and away from danger • Brain seeks patterns • Aesthetic operations essential aspect of our humaness

33. Emotions are critical to learning • Gatekeepers to the intellect • The body sensing areas constitute a sort of theatre where not only the “actual” body states can be “performed”, but varied assortments of “false” body states can be enacted as well… • Mirror-neurons: “As If”…Self-regulation, Social decision making • Emotions create feeling/thoughts • The fast speed of as-if-body mechanisms brings thought and effected feeling close together in time • We learn what we feel

34. 21st Century Skills

35. Partnership for 21st Century Skills National Poll, fall 2007 • 87% of Americans believe that an education focused only on the “so-called” basics may not be providing students with the essential skills to succeed in the 21st century. • Americans expect new results from education that build both basic skills and the ability to be imaginative, creative and innovative. Being innovative and creative, require applying imagination to solve problems, think critically, and make judgments about quality. • Developing the imagination will provide students with the workforce skills necessary to compete in a global economy and to enrich the quality of our personal and civic lives. • One way of developing skills of the imagination is an education in and through the arts, which stimulate creativity, develops the mind and provides motivation for student productivity and the ability to adapt to ever changing circumstances. Source: Partnership for 21st Century Skills National Poll, fall 2007

36. References in progress… • Blakeslee & Blakeslee • Damasio, A. (2005). Looking for Spinoza. • Gardner, H. • Immordino-Yang, M. H. • Perkins, D. • Sternberg, D. • Sylwester, R. • Wilson, F. The Hand.