Multiple Intelligences: Rethinking Student Assessment in Schools

It’s time for your school to take a qualitative leap and bring its academic management processes to the next level. In today’s world, personalized education is essential, and that means adapting assessment strategies to make the most of each student’s unique learning potential.

Would you like to adopt an approach that takes into account the full spectrum of intelligences of all your students? In this article, we explain how you can achieve it with the help of academic management software for schools.

A new look at assessment: the multiple intelligences approach

For a long time, human intelligence was considered a universal, single and indivisible parameter that could be measured through numerical tests. Today, however, thanks to cognitive psychology and the theory of multiple intelligences developed by researcher Howard Gardner, we know that every individual has at least eight different intelligences, combined and used in their own way and at different levels.

Although there may be many more, the intelligences identified to date through this theory are:

• Linguistic
• Logical-mathematical
• Spatial
• Bodily-kinesthetic
• Musical
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Naturalistic

In the past, the most common school tests used standard instruments focused on assessing only a certain number of these intelligences. Today, however, we know that they are all equally important, and that their development is strongly influenced by factors such as the educational and cultural environment. So, to fully value each person’s intelligence profile, learning systems must take all of these elements into account.

Given these circumstances, technology gives us the opportunity to transform the way we assess our students, adapting teaching processes to a much more flexible perspective that is centered on their particular needs and abilities.

Toward more efficient assessment: academic management with educational software

In a context where assessment has shifted toward learning processes based on each individual’s intelligence profile, academic management software is the ideal tool to help schools put this new approach into practice.

First, because it helps teachers more easily identify their students’ talents, skills and learning styles in general, while giving students access to digital resources that match their own learning pace. Some features of educational software that help achieve this are:

Follow-up module

Follow-up modules like the one in Phidias make it possible to record many types of information about students (from academic matters to psychological and health topics) to monitor each of them in detail. This feature allows both teachers and school psychologists to build a digital database made up of different forms, providing comprehensive and detailed support for each student.

On the academic side, the school can thus give each student the attention they need to stimulate the types of intelligence they find most challenging, as well as strengthen those they feel most comfortable learning with.

Reports

Reports are another tool that helps schools improve their teaching strategies, since they provide traceability of the learning process and the grades obtained in different areas of knowledge. Because educational software includes this feature, it is possible to follow each student’s academic progress.

The great advantage is that, from a perspective focused on the individual process, you can assess more accurately how each student absorbs what they learn in class.

This feature can also be complemented with an Education Intelligence tool, which offers reports based on large volumes of correlated data, along with statistical analysis and a review of students’ historical performance, for more personalized follow-up.

You may also be interested in: What does academic software need to properly manage a grading system?

Virtual classroom

Finally, students also benefit from academic software in their learning processes. For example, through virtual classroom tools they have access to a variety of resources, such as images, links, workshops, videos and texts, to progress at their own pace if needed, especially in groups where students absorb knowledge at different speeds.

With all of this in mind, there is no denying that our understanding of the different types of intelligence has triggered a paradigm shift in education, marking a before and after in the way learning is assessed.

That is why, today, fully valuing the richness of diversity and each person’s individual capacities for expression is a necessity for every school. This path is not without its challenges, however. To meet them, technology has become an indispensable tool for transforming assessment strategies and adapting them to a more flexible approach that fits different learning paces.

Are you looking for a comprehensive platform that simplifies the planning, design and implementation of assessments while giving you a clear view of each student’s progress?

At Phidias, we can help you achieve both more personalized assessment and much more effective academic management with our cutting-edge educational software.

Contact us and see for yourself!