This past week I finished reading Explorations in Giftedness by Sternberg, Jarvin and Grigorenko.
Sternberg has been studying intelligence and giftedness for many years and I’ve
read some of his work before. This book covers some of the history of studying
“giftedness”, goes through the pros and cons of different formulations of
giftedness, discusses how one measures giftedness, and suggests how the gifted
should be educated. The authors also elaborate on one of Sternberg’s models
that goes by the acronym WICS – Wisdom, Intelligence, Creativity, Synthesized.
A one-paragraph overview of his book can be found in my previous post.
In today’s post, I want to discuss selections in the final
chapter titled “Educating the Gifted”. I think the suggestions made are
applicable to all teachers, regardless of whether they are teaching gifted
students or not. There are four principles followed by suggestions for each. I
briefly outline the first three, and focus more on the final point. Each
principle comes with more detailed suggestions that I’ve omitted here. If you
are interested, get the book and read this final chapter!
The first principle is that students have different goals
and motivations, and they define success differently. How then does the
educator effectively teach to this range? The authors suggest that educators (a)
provide numerous examples of concepts that cover a wide range of applications,
(b) give students multiple and diverse options in assessment, and (c) grade
student work in a way that preserves both the integrity of the course while
taking into account student life goals. These are all generally good things to
do although possibly time-consuming for the teacher. In my previous class, I
significantly expanded on (a), did some of (b), and I’m not sure how much I
moved forward on the second half of (c). (The first half is implicit in my
courses.)
The second principle is that teachers should help students
capitalize on strengths and at the same time help them correct or compensate
for weakness. The authors state that (a)
there is no one right way of teaching and learning, (b) there is no one right
way of assessing students’ achievement, and educators should (c) teach and
assess to weaknesses as well as strengths. I’d certainly agree with the three
statements – however I think that as a teacher there are inherent limits to
one’s flexibility. The authors correctly, I think, emphasize the variation in
the students, but there are also variations in teachers – and this point is not
addressed. I think teachers should capitalize on their strengths but to the
extent possible compensate for weaknesses. As teachers we should recognize our
limitations in utilizing the plethora of suggested teaching “techniques” out
there.
The third principle is that students need to learn to
balance adaptation to, shaping of, and selection of environments. The authors
state that (a) students, like, teachers, need to develop flexibility, (b)
students need to be allowed and even encouraged to take risks and to make
mistakes, (c) students need to learn how to overcome obstacles. Again I think
these are all things we should structure into our course activities as
teachers. Since I teach at the college level, where there is a stronger
emphasis on developing critical thinking skills (over rote learning), I’ve
tried to model this principle in my courses to challenge the students and
encourage them to challenge themselves. I must admit that many times I don’t go
as far as I should because, to be honest, the students seem rather resistant to
this approach. Perhaps it is because the average student and the majority of my
students are honestly not at all hungry for knowledge and learning. Hence I
have had some activities fall flat, possibly for lack of sufficient motivation
– something I need to keep working on.
The fourth principle is that teaching and assessment should
balance use of analytical, creative, practical, and wise thinking. The four
areas are defined in detail in the book. (I won’t go over this. Get yourself a
copy and read it!) The authors make the very important exhortation that we
should “put behind the false dichotomy of teaching for thinking and teaching
for the facts, or between emphases on thinking and emphases on memory.” In the
paragraph below, I’ve spliced together their elaboration on this point – they
say it much better than I would. Subsequently I’ll discuss my thoughts.
“Thinking always requires memory and the knowledge base that
is accessed through our memories. On cannot analyze what one knows if one knows
nothing. One cannot creatively go beyond the existing boundaries of knowledge
if one does not know what those boundaries are. And one cannot apply what one
knows in a practical manner if one does not know anything to apply. At the same
time, memory for facts without the ability to use those facts is really
useless. [Skipping vignette here.] It is for this reason that we encourage
teachers to teach and assess achievement in ways that enable students to
analyze, create with, and apply their knowledge. [The research shows] an added
benefit: Students perform better on assessments, apparently without regard to
the form the assessments take. [Skipping lots of details and study data here.]
Teachers who teach for wisdom will explore with students the notion that
conventional abilities and achievements are not enough for a satisfying life.
[Skipping lots of examples here.] Students should be encouraged to think about
how almost everything they study might be used for better or worse ends, and to
realize that the ends to which knowledge is put do matter. Teachers need to
realize that the only way they can develop wisdom in their students is to serve
as role models of wisdom themselves.”
It was very interesting that in core curriculum discussions
in a multidisciplinary group (even if all “scientists”), that the “dichotomy”
mentioned by the authors came up. Nobody disagreed in principle that it was a
false dichotomy at least at the philosophical level, but when it came around to
constructing the curriculum and learning goals, the tension between content
(knowledge) and thinking (skill) came up again and again. It almost seemed as
if there were two camps, each trying to emphasize one side of the dichotomy
that they thought the other side was implicitly down-playing. Having recently
been involved in two different core curricula discussions in two institutions,
I think we will need to keep iterating through the curriculum while keeping the
balance in mind.
The other point that the authors make is that all four areas
on their list (analytical, creative, practical, and wise thinking) should be given
a significant amount of shared time. They emphasize that this is particularly
challenging and that for most teachers, one of the areas is dominantly
emphasized over the others. It was very clear to me that I emphasize the
analytical over the rest. I have secondary emphasis on the practical. I think
it has something to do with my own training and my field of expertise as a
theorist although I’ve been trying to slowly correct this over the years. My
lip service to the creative has mostly been through historical vignettes in
class, and my allusions to wise thinking come up mainly in outside of class
discussions with my students, and on very rare occasions as small “wisdom
tidbits” in class. Sternberg and colleagues have reminded me to work more on
this.
I’ve just started doing tiny bits of preparation for my
classes in the upcoming Fall semester. Right now I’m still mainly in summer
research mode and I don’t want to shortchange my research students (given I had
neglected them somewhat during the semester). In any case, the two classes I am
slated to teach will provide many opportunities to incorporate more of the
balanced approach suggested by the authors. The question is whether I’m willing
to put in the time and energy into doing this well. Readers of my blog will
know that revamping my class last semester took quite a bit of time and energy,
but I think it was well worth the effort. And I enjoyed it!
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