Brain Plasticity and

Multiple Intelligences
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Warm-Up: YOGA!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAUf7aajB
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 Brain plasticity and yoga
✘ Yoga enhance your brain function
✘ It can positively affect the structure of your brain
✘ You can achieve brain-boosting benefits by practicing
yoga one to two times per week
✘ Any type of new skill enhances your brain function
✘ Yoga is seen to improve brain plasticity

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 Neurolism
The author of our book adopted this term from the
neuroscience of learning to cover the phenomena known as
Brain-based Learning or Information Processing Theory
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Brain PLasticity
 Norman Doidge
✘ Born in 1950 (70 years old)
✘ Canadian psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, author, essayist,
poet
✘ Works at University of Toronto
✘ Author of two bestselling books - “The Brain That
Changes itself” & “The Brain’s Way of Healing”
✘ Largest contributor to the discoveries of brain plasticity
✘ Although the concept of brain plasticity is broad and
vague, Doidge claims this is one of the most important
discoveries about the brain

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 BRain plasticity
✘ A plastic brain means a flexible brain
✘ It’s the brain’s ability to change at any age—for
better or worse.
✗ Modify brain’s connections or rewire itself
✘ Your brain changes continuously throughout
your life
✘ It gives hope to a incurable brain condition and
expands our knowledge of a healthy brain

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 Three Principles Of Brain Plasticity
✘ Age variability: more predominant in early life, but
is still a lifetime occurrence
✗ As people age, plasticity declines and learning
becomes more difficult
✘ Process variety: involves brain cells other than
neurons (optical & vascular) which connect together
✘ Nature and nurture: can be a result of damage to
the brain, memory loss, or genetics

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 Types of Brain PLasticity
Structural Plasticity
✘ Brain’s ability to change its
physical structure due to
learning

Functional Plasticity
✘ Brain’s ability to move
functions from a damaged
area of the brain to
undamaged areas of the brain

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 Brain Plasticity in the CLassroom
✘ Continue to challenge learners while
keeping their feelings in mind
✘ Change up your classroom and teaching Brain
style Plasticity
is fun!
✘ Make learning relevant to student’s lives
✘ Encourage learners to reflect on what they
have learned
✘ Teach students that their brains are
malleable

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 Brain plasticity is society
✘ Helps people who have brain conditions using exercises
✘ People with born with half their brain can rewire it to
work as a whole
✘ Helps with learning disorders
✘ Rejuvenating ages brains
✘ Painful phantom limbs erased
✘ Children with cerebral palsy learning how to move more
gracefully

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Multiple Intelligences
 Howard Gardner Background
✘ Born in Scranton, PA in 1943
✘ An American developmental
psychologist
✘ A Harvard graduate and now a
Professor for their Graduate School
of Education
✘ Presented his theory in his 1983 book
“Frames of Mind: The Theory of
Multiple Intelligences”

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 The Multiple Intelligences (MI) Theory
✘ A critique to the standard psychological view: that there
is a single intelligence or one computer with one way of
processing
✘ MI implies that humans think like multiple computers
with varying strengths and weaknesses
✘ Every person has the ability to develop multiple
intelligences
✘ Each person has an unique mixture of MI

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 Multiple Intelligences
Linguistic Logical-Mathematical
✘ “Word Smart” ✘ “Number/Reasoning Smart”
✘ Using words and language ✘ Using numbers and reasoning skills
✘ Allows us to understand the order ✘ People with this intelligence are
and meaning of words interested in strategy games,
✘ People with this intelligence enjoy arithmetic problems, and
reading, writing, telling stories and experiments
doing crossword puzzles

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 Multiple Intelligences
Musical Naturalistic
✘ “Musical Smart” ✘ “Nature Smart”
✘ Being sensitive to rhythm and sound ✘ Understanding patterns in
✘ Enables people to create, recognize, nature
reproduce and reflect on music ✘ The ability to recognize and
✘ People with this intelligence are categorize objects in nature
usually singing or drumming to
themselves

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 Multiple Intelligence
Bodily-Kinesthetic Visual-Spatial
✘ “Body Smart” ✘ “Picture Smart”
✘ Manipulating objects and being ✘ Think three-dimensionally
physically adept ✘ People with this intelligence
✘ The ability to manipulate objects and will enjoy mazes, jigsaw
use a variety of physical skills puzzles, spend free-time
✘ Involves a sense of timing and drawing/daydreaming
perfection of skills

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 Multiple Intelligences
Interpersonal Intrapersonal
✘ “People Smart” ✘ “Self Smart”
✘ Understanding and interacting with others ✘ Understanding one’s own self and thoughts
✘ Common qualities may be: ✘ Using that knowledge to plan/direct one’s
✗ sensitivity to moods life
✗ ability to entertain multiple perspectives ✘ Characteristics are:
✗ Leaders in groups ✗ Being shy
✗ Good communicators ✗ Very aware of their own feelings
✗ Are self-motivated

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Multiple Intelligences In The CLassroom and Society
Classroom Society
✘ Individualize instruction ✘ Career Counseling
✘ Diversify your lessons ✘ Job-training
✘ Maximize our teaching ✘ college?
✘ Adjusting classroom layout

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Now it’s your Turn!
Search “Best Multiple
Intelligence Test”
Click the literacynet website
https://www.literacynet.org/mi/asse
ssment/findyourstrengths.html

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Articles
 Article 1: Learning the MI Way
✘ What are the two most useful educational
purposes for Multiple Intelligences?
✘ What are the 3 effects MI has on learning and
what do they mean for the students?
✘ How does increased flexibility in the learning
environment affect students?

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Article 2 - BRAIN plasticity: how learning changes your brain
✘ When does neuroplasticity (brain plasticity)
occur?
✘ What was believed for a long time about our
brain (before brain plasticity) as it aged?

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 Article 3- Assessing Multiple Intelligence of (5-7 Years)
Students
✘ What does Gardner say multiple-intelligence is
based on?
✘ What were the top 3 intelligences of those who
participated in the study? Why do you think
this is true for children aged 5-7?

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Article 4: Neuroplasticity: Learning physically changes the brain
✘ What does the article mean by “neuroplasticity is
defined as the selective organizing of connections
between neurons in our brains.”?
✘ What happened when students became aware that
their brain is malleable?
✘ How could a teacher change their classroom to be
more fit for changing brains?

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 Article 5: Why You Should Teach Students about the Multiple
Intelligences Theory
✘ Why should students learn that they are all
intelligent in different ways? How else may
they feel otherwise?
✘ Why is it important to educate students about
the MI theory? How could we help them better
understand it?

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 Works Cited
https://www.multipleintelligencesoasis.org/the-components-of-mi
https://www.literacynet.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html
http://www.normandoidge.com/?page_id=1046
https://inservice.ascd.org/understanding-multiple-intelligences-for-the-classroom/
https://www.onecommunityglobal.org/multi-intelligences/
https://study.com/academy/lesson/using-multiple-intelligences-in-the-classroom.html
https://www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html
https://www.edutopia.org/neuroscience-brain-based-learning-neuroplasticity

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