Intelligence & Study Guide

Intelligence Study Guide

Objectives:

●     Define "intelligence" and explain how your definition might impact your teaching

●     Describe multiple theories of intelligence

●     Analyze the impact of sex, race, culture, and socioeconomic status on intelligence

Key Terms:

Pages 137-152

IQ – Intelligence quotient is a score that compares mental age and chronological age. The formula is Intelligence Quotient = Mental Age/ Chronological Age x 100

Flynn Effect – the effect of increasing IQ score by James Flynn

Cognitive Ability – is the ability to create and remember images and spatial information.

Cognitive Style – There are two types of cognitive styles visualizer and verbalizer. Visualizer usually thinks using images and visual information. Verbalizers usually think using words and verbal information.

Learning Preference – a persons preferred way of studying and learning.

Intellectual Styles – a way to think about intellectual styles that is manageable. There are three types: Types I, II, and III. Type I – prefers unstructured, free-flowing, creative, complex, and autonomous learning. Type II – prefers structured and straightforward tasks. Type III picks and choices between types I and II.

Spearman’s g – General intelligence that is used to perform a mental test. Each test is required some specific ability in addition to g.

Catell’s Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

·         Fluid intelligence is mental efficiency and reasoning ability

·         Crystallized Intelligence is the ability to use problem-solving methods that are appropriate to your culture.

Sternberg's Theory of Successful Intelligence – intelligence is more than your measurement of your mental abilities. It is about your successes based on your own definition of success in your culture. The theory has three parts: analytic, creative, and practical intelligence

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences – an individual’s intelligent abilities broken down into eight separate abilities: linguistic (verbal), musical, spatial, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic (movement), interpersonal (understanding others), intrapersonal (understanding self), and naturalist (understanding human made patterns).

Distributed Intelligence – the ability to use things, people, or resources beyond ourselves to act more intelligently.

Emotional Intelligence – our understanding and regulation of our emotions.

Mindset:

·         Fixed Mindsets

o   Thinking your intelligence and talents are a fixed trait.

·         Growth Mindsets

o   Abilities and talents cultivated through effort and instruction.

Summarize the information about sex and intelligence:

            From infancy through the preschool years, most studies find few differences between boys and girls in overall mental and motor development or in specific abilities. Scores on tests of specific abilities show sex differences. From elementary through high school, girls show higher scores than boys on tests of reading and writing. Boys, however, show an advantage when it comes to manipulating visual images and spatial abilities. Can intelligence be heredity or environment?? It is almost impossible to separate intelligence from experience and genes. Psychologists today believe that intelligence is the result of both heredity and environment.

Summarize the information about race and intelligence:

             There are studies that show a difference in IQ scores based on race; however Neuroscientists believe there are no physiological differences in the brains of people from different races that would explain different intelligence levels.

Summarize the information about culture and intelligence:

How people are raised, what their culture values, and what their environments are like can dramatically impact their performance on IQ tests. Some cultures think that reading books is useless while other cultures may value the way they hunt. Culture can play a large role in how intelligence is defined, what we feel is intelligent behavior, and what qualities we will try to teach future generations. Culture factors are an important factor to consider but socioeconomic status is one fact that has played a major role in IQ.

Summary:

Intelligence is the “ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations.” Intelligences are used to process knowledge for life and its complexities. Many theories describe intelligence gain and describe how the brain may compartmentalize the new information. Strategies and systems have been developed that measure Intelligence success in the classroom. However, more research and observation is needed. It may be that we will never know what intelligence really is, how our brain organizes the information, if it can expand, or if it is even quantifiable.

Application Questions:

1. How do you define intelligence? How will this definition impact how you teach, what you teach, and the expectations you have for your students?

            The definition that I really like is “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations.” I want my students to be growth-mindset students. One of the reasons why I am becoming a teacher is that I know that some kids do not have a support system. I want to be able to show them their abilities and give them belief that they can do and be anything they want to be.

 2. How will you incorporate multiple intelligence's and intellectual styles/preferences in your teaching?

Learning styles and incorporating multiple intelligences will be incorporated into my teaching. Throughout this chapter I understand the benefits of incorporating them and it provides me with a strategy to make learning more effective. One way I would incorporate them was if I was seeing my students struggle with a topic I would try to find other ways to teach the concept. For example, if my lecture is heavily verbal/linguistic approach than I will try and incorporate as much as I can of all eight strategies into my lesson plan. My goal with this is to ensure that I am reaching every student through various means of learning styles.

 3. How will you help your students develop a growth mindset?

I will help my students develop a growth mindset by teaching students strategies. They can also develop mindset by me helping them understand and accept that errors and mistakes are a part of the learning process and to learn from them. I also read recently that to help develop a growth mindset teachers want to make sure that they are comparing a student’s progress to their prior work and not comparing them to other students.

  

4. How will you help your students develop Emotional Intelligence? Be specific about how you will help students develop each of Goleman’s 5 attributes.

I want to create an environment where students respect and understand emotions. They understand their own emotions and they can sympathize with other student’s emotions. This environment will allow my students to be honest and students can be themselves. In order for this environment to exist I will need to be the example and show students how to properly handle themselves as situations come up. To motivate my students I want to create an award system. I remember in 5^th grade we had a reward system that everyone had a green, yellow, blue, and red card. If within two weeks everyone got a green card the whole class had some reward (movie, party, treats, etc.) The card system was to promote good behavior and encourage students’ interactions and environment to encourage students to get the green card.