MATHEMATICAL METHODS AND APPLIED COMPUTING

Valuing the Theory of Multiple Intelligences in Formal Curriculum. New Trends

MARIANA NOREL, RODICA MARIANA NICULESCU, DOINA USACI, DACIANA LUPU Psychology and Educational Sciences Faculty Transilvania University of Braov Address: Str. Nicolae Blcescu, nr. 56, Braov, 500019 ROMANIA mariana_norel@unitbv.ro, rodicanic@unitbv.ro, usaci@unitbv.ro, dacianalupu@unitbv.ro http://www.unitbv.ro

Abstract: - The paper present how curricular reform from Romanian educational system provided an adequate framework capable to implement new trends of differential and individualised education, in order to valorise the intellectual potential of each student. There are disseminated the results of a questionnaire applied to teachers from pre-university educational system, in order to establish the manner in which they approach the issue of differential learning using the theory of multiple intelligences in the educational process. Key-Words: - multiple intelligences, curricular reform, formal curriculum, differential education, student centred education can also be observed at the level of teachers training the reform project in Pre-university education initiated by National Ministry of Education from Romania in collaboration with of Educational Development Centre Boston, SUA. There were organised special trainings for national trainers pointing to differentiation of learning and applications of multiple intelligences theory. The American trainers experience was valorised by national trainers in their disseminations; the translated papers and books represented an important resource for teachers interested in implementing TIM in educational process. Through the new concept school centred on individuals- the Howard Garners theory of multiple intelligences has, according to his statement, important educational influences. [3] Education must aim to develop the human personality to its full potential and to strengthen the respect for both human rights and for its fundamental freedom. [7], therefore, the child has the right to be treated differentiated so as to ensure a harmonious development of his personality, according to his own type of personality. Differential pedagogy an them introduced by de L. Lengrand (1973)- has as foundation R. Cousinet, C.Freinet, J. Piaget, Ed. Claparde, H. Wallon, C. Rogers and L. Lengrands ideas. In this type of pedagogy the student is considered a person with his own representation about educational situation. It can be said that its a various pedagogy that recommends a

1 Introduction
25 years ago, Howard Gardner created for the first time the theory of multiple intelligences [2]. As an adept of high standards and simulative expectances, Gardner starts with a critical approach of the American model of education considered uniform a set of competencies and basic acquisitions of (logic-mathematical and linguistic) for each student to be obtained [2]; therefore, the same curriculum, the same methods and procedures, the same standardized evaluation methods on which students, teachers and schools are assessed. Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligences has found a place in Romanian educational system especially in primary education- a fertile field, open to modern approaches and to collaboration between all the educational actors (teachers, professors, students, councillors, parents). One can say that the implementation of multiple intelligences theory was conducted almost simultaneously with Gardners one in the American educational system (even though in the last decade of the former century, the Romanian teachers were intuitively using the multiple intelligences theory in the teachinglearning-assessing process). It must also be mentioned the manifested interest in translating the following books: The Disciplined Mind, in 2005, at Sigma Printing Press and Multiple Intelligences. New Horizons, in 2006, at only several months after the American edition. This synchronicity

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MATHEMATICAL METHODS AND APPLIED COMPUTING

large area of actions, opposed to uniformisation, to false democracy under which all must work in the same time, following the same ways and with the same rate. [6] Gardner sustains the idea that each person has a proper combination of these eight intelligence types linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial-visual intelligence, musical intelligence, bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence, naturalistic intelligence, interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence. According to the same author each individual has the capacity to develop these intelligences at an accepted level, if he is encouraged and if he benefits of special adequate training. [3]

2. Curricular reform in Romania pending between aspiration and achievement

The curricular reform was used, in the first decade, on different levels, but all of them pointing in the same direction- reflecting the actual orientation of Romanian educational system and the need to adjust after the European and Euro-Atlantic requirements. All that was build with the help of teachers and students, from both the urban and rural area stayed under the reform umbrella: scholar successes and insucces, the methods used in teaching-learning-assessment process, the attitude towards teaching. What does this reform bring as new? If we look both at the educational politics situation in our country and at the existent legislation, then we can see that, till now, the developed reform has been concentrated around relations area, between the ministry and scholar and university institutions and over the institutional growth. Nowadays we need a complex and coherent reform which must bring to front teachers and students and which points to national curricula, a reform meant to change things not just to avoid risks, a fundamental one not just a partial one. [5] The question should be - Does this goal remains as a declarative one or can we talk about a success of curricular reform? The educational agents opinions are different as we can see in the published studies about this issue. The impact study School at a crossroad. Change and continuity in education, was realised in 2001, by a collaborators team of Educational Centre 2000+, at the request of Ministry of Education and Research. It was part of Curriculum Module Reform Project in Pre-univesity Education, co-funded by Romanian Government and Mondial Bank (RO-3724) and represents the result of quantitative and qualitative research, through effects investigation of the curricular reform over teachers, school managers, students and parents.

It highlights the need to represent in a new manner the students at school as having an improved set of competencies, also initiative hopes and dreams and there is also the need to create develop and talk about a new conception of organizing, implementing and constructing values for actual society based on knowledge. [8] As the impact studys authors suggest curricular reform in educational system aimed to improve the students learning performances, while contributing to their personality development, also aiming to achieve a better quality in education. [...] The fundamental option is clear: when school is at a crossroad, continuity and change must be complementary, otherwise they may generate instability or they may lead to an undesirable past. [8] After the analyze was finished, there were reported some differences between the teachers training and occurred curricular changes, some time being recovered, other times being accentuated. Thus, we can say that the attitude of teachers towards all that is new has a decisive role in the implementation of reform principles. It is also important the extent to which they want to understand and to accept the curricular changes and challenges. In other words, the formative has a central place: if the teacher trusts the educational offer, if he succeeds to motivate the students and their parents, then we can talk about an educational system that lied under the sign of reform, a reform that must be understood and accepted on all levels and by social classes.

3. Applying the theory of multiple intelligences in Formal Curriculum a new trend?

The formal curriculum includes curricular proposals agreed by the Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation from Romania, materialised as educational strategic plans, syllabuses, methodological guides and alternative manuals used at all four levels of preuniversity education: pre-primary education, primary education, secondary education and higher education. Curricular reform from the last decade has an impute over the development of education at all the levels from the Romanian system, more or less felt and, it also an impute on how to design and develop the educational strategic plans, syllabuses, alternative manuals and auxiliary materials. Thus, we can talk about certain and favourable curricular change occurred since 1998, the very first year of curricular reform. It was a complicated period, even now, after ten years since the reform started, there are children teachers who dont accept, fight against or dont want to know anything about the

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MATHEMATICAL METHODS AND APPLIED COMPUTING

changes that would affect the educational process also their work. In fact the answer at the following question: Does the curricular reform in the Romanian educational system is just an aspiration or does it been achieved? is reflected in each teacher didactical activity, in students and their parents attitude towards school and learning, in community involvement in education. To analyse how differential learning is used while valorising the theory of multiple intelligences in the educational process, we applied a questionnaire taken from Differential Instruction. Using Multiple Intelligences Theorys Application. A Guide for Trainers and Teachers. [1]. We establish a value of .808 for the Alpha Cronbach coefficient, representing the questionnaire reliability because there wasnt made such an analyse. The study has a descriptive character. Its objectives are: identifying the different perspectives of teachers about differentiated work modalities used in pre-university education; establishing the extent to which teachers identify, develop and encourage the students native talents thorough adaptation of the teaching-learning- assessment methods at the dominant intelligence and/or at students personal aptitudes. The questionnaire has 14 items. The respondents answer by ticking on a scale starting from 1 to 5 (from 1 very high to small measure), as follows: (1) Individual differences (2) Adapted Teaching for each student (3) Proper environment for differentiated teachinglearning-assessment (4) Use of active learning strategies (5) Intelligence type knowledge (6) Learning situations adequate to dominant intelligence type (7) Support for recognising personal talents (8) Activities for all types of intelligence (9) Specific criteria for assessment (10)Environmental design for all individual learning styles (11) Use of multiple intelligence (12) Informing parents about students skills (13) Involving parents in valorising the dominant intelligence type (14) Valuing Howard Gardners multiple intelligence theory in teaching The research lot has 119 subjects, teachers in preuniversity education as follows: 29 pre-school teachers (22.69%), 36 primary school teachers (30.25%) and 56 secondary school teachers (47.06%). The first assessed aspect was the attitude towards multiple intelligences theory. From the comparative analyses of means reported to global results (the sum of all items between 14 and 70) we can see there arent significant differences between nursery school teachers and

primary school teachers regarding the perception and valorisation of multiple intelligences theory, demonstrated by an insignificant T test. But there are significant differences between primary school teachers and secondary school teachers, a T test of -2.349 with a signification of 0.021 showing secondary school teachers are less interested in multiple intelligences theory. As a conclusion there can be said that teachers from secondary school are less receptive at the theory of multiple intelligence even though they declare it is important to know the individual differences because each person is unique in her/his own way (R.7) and represents an individual with his/her skills and aptitudes(R.8). Comparatively analysing the importance degree for the seniority with the global score of the scales, we can see that: teachers who are working for more then 10 years (41.18%) have a wider perspective reported to multiple intelligences theory and want to create more educational contexts where students can demonstrate their dominant type of intelligence, but when they have more then 10 years in the work filed (11-25 years at their workplaces40.34%) while teacher that are working in the system or more then 25 years have a even more low consideration for the theory of multiple intelligences. (Fig1).
lenght of service 3 1
50

40

Frequency

30

20

10

0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5

Global_score_scale

Fig.1 The comparative analyse between those 14 items and the extent to which teachers teach, generated the following conclusion (Table 1): preschool teachers and those from the primary school consider that is the most important thing is to inform parents about their talents, to recognise your students their individual differences and also, to use in the educational activity, active learning strategies.
Importance Preschool Primary Secondary Degree Teachers School Teachers School Teachers Item Mean Item Mean Item Mean Most 12 1,33 12 1,47 7 1,79 important

4 1 Less 2 important 11 14

1,52 1,59 2,33 2,74 2,96

4 1,53 1 1,64 14 2,67 9 2,67 11 2,94 Table 1

1 4 9 11 14

1,80 1,84 2,79 2,93 3,88

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MATHEMATICAL METHODS AND APPLIED COMPUTING

Although teachers are informed about the importance of recognising the individual differences, however, there is a weak responsiveness in order to adapt teaching approach in a way that allows the valorisation of students dominant intelligence types. There are also lots of teachers (especially those from primary school) that use and valorise TIM because they became interested in teaching-learning -assessing methods using a multiple intelligence manner or because their interest was risen by the trainings and they want to experiment a new method, found in the special literature (first of all we are talking about Howard Garners books) or because of good practice exchanges to which they participated as members of different national and transnational project (as results from the questionnaire). The global scores regarding the responsiveness degree of secondary school teacher, at the idea to improve the educational activity using multiple intelligences, were analysed by reference to curricular area language and communication manifest the highest receptivity for valorising students dominant intelligences (the values distribution is between 10 and 40); this receptivity is relatively low for teachers teaching disciplines from the following curricular areas Technologies, Arts, Physic Education and Sport, and for teachears that teach Mathematics and Sciences there is a large distribution (between 40 to 70).
Curricular_Area
Language and Communication Mathematics and Sciences Technologies Arts Psysical Education and Sport

parents have a decisive role in the development of students talents: parents must know about their children talents, in order to support and encourage him also a parent must be supported in order valorise their children talents (R.16). Here we found, however, a certain shallowness regarding differential education for students, because some respondents considered very important to inform and to involve parents in valorisation of childrens dominant intelligence but less important teachers interventions for this purpose. This minus can be covered by introducing, during the continuous teaching trainings periods, some modules presenting those new tendencies found in student centred education.

4 Conclusions
By comparing the obtained results of the questionnaire with the direct observations, it is shown that at the educational activities developed by primary school teachers, the theory of multiple intelligences is applied in various Romanian schools. Forming and developing the students trust in his/her forces, change a lot his/her evolution, also encourages the active participation in the educational activities proposed by teachers and develops their responsibility. We think that because each student is unique, the primary school teachers duty is to adept learning environment at pupils needs, by using strategies of teaching-learning-assessment that develop each childs capacities and in the end the students scholar success increases. While using various differential activities we teach students to think, to act, to create abilities and scholar skills, to acquire intellectual work techniques, to develop the capacity to implement acquired acquisitions in various ways. In a school where students are motivated to learn, first of all, activities they are gifted for we can say that student centred education happens not just at a declarative level, but it represent a reality: school oriented towards childrens needs aims to maximise each student intellectual potential. [4] In student centred education, the curriculum facilitates the development of different intelligences profiles for all students, but depends on preschool teachers, primary school teachers and secondary schools teachers to find adequate methods and procedures for teaching-learning-assessment process in order to stimulate the combination of intelligences at students. Acknowledgement: This paper and the research behind it is done under the project ID_203, funded by CNCSIS Romania

Frequency

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10 20 30 40 50 60 70 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Global_Score

Fig. 2 Analysing the global scores registered on curricular areas results that 80 % of subjects, no matter to which curricular area their disciplines belong, they consider that modern lesson efficiency consists in the class created climate, in creating various possibilities of approaching by using the students dominant intelligence. Most of the subjects like to adapt educational activities to the dominant intelligence type of each student, to designing the learning environment according to individual types of learning, but they think that

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MATHEMATICAL METHODS AND APPLIED COMPUTING

References: [1] Education and Research Ministry, National Council for Teachers Training, Differential Education. Multiple Intelligences Theory Applications. A Guide for trainers and teachers. (coord. Lucia Gliga, Jody Spiro), Series Quality in Education , Bucharest, 2002 [2] Gardner, H., Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Published by Basic Books, 10th Edition, 1993 [3] Gardner, H., Multiple Intelligences. New Horizons, Published by Basic Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2006, trans in Romanian and published by Sigma Printing Press, Bucharest, 2006 [4] Gardner, H., The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts And Standardized Tests, The K-12 Education That

Every Child Deserves, New York: Simon and Schuster (and New York: Penguin Putnam), 1999, 2000, translated into Romanian and published at Sigma Printing Press, Bucharest, 2004 [5] Marga, A., The actual reform in educational system, in National Curriculum. Educational Strategic Plan, National Education Ministry, Bucharest, 1998 [6] Stanciu, M., Reform in educational system contents, Polirom Printing Press, Iai, 1999 [7] The Universal Declaration of Human Rights [8] Vlsceanu, L. (coord.), School at a Crossroad. Change and Continuity in Education-An Impact Study, vol. I, Polirom Printing Press, Iai, 2002

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ISBN: 978-960-474-124-3