Multimedia and Multiple Intelligences

Well, posting on this topic may put me on unsteady ground in my class as the professor has indicated that he is not a huge supporter of this theory, but if I am going to be honest I have to come out and say that I firmly believe in the "idea" of multiple intelligence.  I understand all the arguments about scientific basis, and I have read articles by folks like Fridley & Fridley (2010), who indicate that MI has origins in phrenology and that the idea is full of  holes.  I see where the criticism stems from and I am ok with it.  The thing for me is that the theory of multiple intelligences most closely describes what I have observed first hand and through my interactions with others.


The critics most often do what critics do and try to radicalize the theory as if Gardner was stating that each person is constructed of one intelligence and that is the only way they learn.  To the contrary, in his book, Frames of Mind:  The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1993), he indicates that people are a mixed bag and typically have varying degrees of each intelligence within them, but that some tend to be more dominant.  What this means is that a person could have any combination of the nine identified intelligences with any number and combination as dominant.


With that out of the way, how does this relate to the use of multimedia?  Multimedia has the potential to bridge the gap between the varying intelligences, specifically in the distance learning or online environment.  Consider the typical fordist model with a high level of standardization and distribution.  Each course could be designed in such a way that each significant learning module would contain a variety of multimedia learning objects each of which contribute to the student's progress towards the established learning objective of that lesson.


There would be interactive models for kinesthetic learners, lectures for auditory learners, discussion boards for people who are interpersonal, and reflective blogs for those who are intrapersonal.  Each objective would have at least nine ways to interact with it.  Each type of learner may still be required to interact with all activities or, if the activities are equivalent in nature, each learner could interact with those objects that allow them to gain the best grasp of the subject matter.


While a traditional classroom may not allow for so many different learning activities, the industrialized model of online content delivery would enable educators to offer all of these different learning opportunities without greatly extending the time required by each student to comprehend the material.

References

Fridley, W., & Fridley, C. (2010). Some Problems & Peculiarities with the Learning Styles Rhetoric & Practice. Journal of Philosophy & History of Education, 6021-27. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.


Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences [Kindle Edition].   Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/kindle-ebooks.

Simonson, M., Sandino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S.  (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education.  (4th ed.)  New York City, NY: Allyn & Bacon.