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Successful intelligence in the classroom
Theory Into Practice, Autumn, 2004 by Robert J. Sternberg, Elena L. Grigorenko
Many students could learn more effectively than they do now if they were taught in a way that better matched their patterns of abilities. Teaching for successful intelligence provides a way to create such a match. It involves helping all students capitalize on their strengths and compensate for or correct their weaknesses. It does so by teaching in a way that balances learning for memory, analytical, creative, and practical thinking. This article describes how such teaching is done and provides data supporting the efficacy of the approach.
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MANY CHILDREN FAIL TO LEARN at a level that matches their ability to learn. There can be a number of reasons for this failure. One reason is that the way students are taught and often assessed in school does not enable them to learn and perform in an optimal way. We have developed the theory of successful intelligence in order to understand these children (Sternberg, 1997a, 1999), and a set of methods of teaching for successful intelligence to help these students reach their full potential (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2000).
The Theory of Successful Intelligence: A Capsule Description
According to the proposed theory, successful intelligence is the use of an integrated set of abilities needed to attain success in life, however an individual defines it, within his or her sociocultural context. Thus, there is no one definition of intelligence. People are successfully intelligent by virtue of recognizing their strengths and making the most of them at the same time they recognize their weaknesses and find ways to correct or compensate for them. Both are important. On one hand, students need to learn to correct aspects of their performance in which they are underperforming. On the other hand, they have to recognize that they probably will never be superb at all kinds of performance. It helps to find ways around weaknesses, such as seeking help from others and giving it in return. In other words, people find their own unique path to being intelligent. Successfully intelligent people adapt to, shape, and select environments. In adaptation, they change themselves to fit the environment. For example, a teacher may adapt to the expectations of her principal by teaching in a way she believes the principal will endorse. In shaping, people change the environment to fit them. The teacher may try to persuade the principal to support a new way of teaching different from what the principal has been accustomed to in the past. And in selection, they find a new environment. For example, the teacher may decide to seek a placement in another school if she is unable to convince the principal that her way of teaching is valid and will result in benefits for the students. They accomplish these ends by finding a balance in their use of analytical, creative, and practical abilities (Sternberg, 1997a, 1999).
This definition of successful intelligence contains within it several implications for teaching.
Classroom Applications
Teaching for successful intelligence attempts to help teachers reach a larger cross-section of students than more traditional teaching methods that emphasize memory and analytical instruction. In teaching for successful intelligence, a teacher follows a number of fundamental ideas.
There is no one right way of teaching and learning. Moreover, there is no one right way of assessing students' achievement. Teaching and assessment should balance use of analytical, creative, and practical thinking. Fundamentally, teachers need to help students capitalize on individual patterns of strengths and, at the same time, help them correct or compensate for weaknesses. Students, like teachers, need to develop flexibility, giving students multiple and diverse options in assessment.
Because students have different life goals, student success needs to be defined in terms that are meaningful to them as well as to the institution. Students are more likely to see meaning if teachers provide numerous examples of concepts that cover a wide range of applications. Grade student work in a way that preserves the integrity of the course as well as the integrity of the students' varied life goals.
Sometimes teachers are reluctant to teach for successful intelligence because they believe that these techniques may apply to other teachers' students, but not to their own. We would say in response that our research, some of which is described below, has not turned up any groups of students who cannot profit from this form of instruction. The students whose performance improves the most tend to be those who do not profit optimally from conventional instruction. For example, children from out-of-the way areas, such as rural Alaska, have tremendous stores of practical knowledge that can help them learn if only teachers give them the chance to use their knowledge to succeed (Sternberg, Lipka, Newman, Wildfeuer, & Grigorenko, 2003).
We encourage teachers to teach and assess achievement in ways that enable students to analyze, create with, and apply their knowledge. When students think to learn, they also learn to think. And there is an added benefit: Students who are taught analytically, creatively, and practically perform better on assessments, apparently without regard to the form the assessments take. That is, they outperform students instructed in conventional ways, even if the assessments are for straight factual memory (Sternberg, Torff, & Grigorenko, 1998a, 1998b). Moreover, our research shows that these techniques succeed, regardless of subject-matter area. But what, exactly, are the techniques used to teach analytically, creatively, and practically (see Table 1 for a summary)?
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