all Howard Gardner stories

Howard Gardner's 'quintet of minds'

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 11:54:47 -0400

It’s been more than 20 years since Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner offered up a radical idea: that humans possess multiple forms of intelligence rather than just a single type that is easily tested by linguistic and logical-mathematical parameters.

His groundbreaking “Frames of Mind” (1983) changed traditional psychological views of intelligence, and helped educators question conventional teaching and testing.

In a new book this year, Gardner — the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) — goes beyond describing cognition. He ventures into prescription.

Project Zero, Reggio Emilia, combine for study on documenting learning

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:18:38 -0400

The preschools of the Italian province of Reggio Emilia are known internationally for their innovative pedagogy. Researchers from Project Zero, a research project at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, have studied how children learn in a partnership with Reggio Emilia schools. Harvard Professor Howard Gardner says the research should do away with common preconceptions about early childhood education. "You may think that learning is necessarily individual, but it's not," Gardner said. What's more, assessment of learning is not necessarily tests, and documentation need not be private. "It can be an intrinsic and magnificent part of learning," said Gardner. The research results appear in a new book, "Making Learning Visible: Children as Individual and Group Learners."

Doctoral student developing Internet search tool

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:12:39 -0400

Harvard Graduate School of Education doctoral student Kathleen Guinee is developing a computer-based tool to make searching the Internet easier for all students. Her research so far has focused on understanding students' search strategies on the Web. Guinee gave 16 computer campers an assignment to gather information about islands of their choosing. The more successful searchers started with broad terms that they refined. So, "Hawaii" became "Hawaiian dance," which became "Hawaiian hula dancing," and so on. This approach is called "hierarchical searching." Many of the campers used another technique altogether. They searched categorically. One 11-year-old wanted to learn about birds in the Bahamas.