Teaching for Successful Intelligence

Our goal is to raise the achievement of all students by teaching them in a way that matches the way they learn. The question, of course, is how to do it. We think we have a way. Of course, it is not the only way. But so far, it seems to work for a wide variety of students of varied ages and in diverse subject-matter areas.

The Problem: Schools that Work for Some Students but Not Others

The problem is that some children seem to benefit just fine from the schooling they get, but others do not. Teachers try very hard to reach all students, but rather frequently, find that there are some students who just seem to be hard to reach. There can be many reasons why certain students are hard to reach-disabilities, disorders, motivational problems, health problems, and so forth. One reason, though, can be the mismatch between a pattern of strengths and weaknesses on the part of the student and the particular range of methods that a teacher is using in trying to reach that student. "Teaching for successful intelligence" provides a series of techniques for reaching as many students as possible (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2000; Sternberg & Spear-Swerling, 1996; Sternberg & Williams, 2002). Teaching for successful intelligence is based on a psychological theory, the theory of successful intelligence (Sternberg, 1997).

What is Successful Intelligence?¹

Successful intelligence is the ability to succeed in life, given one's own goals, within one's environmental contexts. Thus, successful intelligence is a basis for school achievement, but also life achievement. A key aspect of the theory is that success is defined in terms of a person's individual goals with the context in which that person lives, rather than in terms of more generalized goals that somehow are supposed to apply to everyone.

One is successfully intelligent to the extent one effectively adapts to, shapes, and selects environments, as appropriate. Sometimes one modifies oneself to fit the environment (adaptation), as when a teacher or student enters a new school, and tries to fit into the new environment. Other times, one modifies the environment to fit oneself, as when a teacher or student tries to improve the school environment to make it a better place in which to work. And yet other times, one selects a new environment, as when one decides that it would be better to be in another school because attempts to adapt to and/or shape the environment of the current school have not been successful.

People adapt to, shape, and select by recognizing and capitalizing on strengths, and by recognizing and compensating for or correcting weaknesses. People do not achieve success in the same way. Each person has to find his or her own "recipe" for success. One of the most useful things a teacher can do is to help a student figure out how to make the most of what he or she does well, and to find ways around what he or she does not do so well.

Finally, people capitalize and compensate through a balance of analytical, creative, and practical abilities. How to teach in a way that enables students to do so is the topic of the remainder of this article.

What is Teaching for Successful Intelligence?

Teaching for successful intelligence involves a way of looking at the teaching-learning process that broadens the kinds of activities and assessments teachers traditionally do. Many good teachers "teach for successful intelligence" spontaneously. But, for one reason or another, most do not. Teaching for successful intelligence involves, at minimum, using a set of prompts that encourages students to engage in memory learning as well as analytical, creative, and practical learning.²

The key strategies are these:

• Strategy 1: Teaching for Memory Learning
  Most conventional teaching is teaching for memory learning. Teaching for successful intelligence does not ask teachers to stop what they already are doing. Rather, it asks teachers to build on it. Teaching for memory is the foundation for all other teaching, because students cannot think critically (or any other way) about what they know if they do not know anything. Teaching for memory basically involves assisting or assessing students' memory of the who (e.g., "Who did something?"), what (e.g., "What did they do?"), where ("Where did they do it?"), when ("When did they do it?"), why ("Why did they do it?"), and how ("How did they do it?") of learning.
• Strategy 2: Teaching for Analytical Learning
  We have found it useful, in teaching for analytical thinking, to teach students how to use a problem-solving cycle in their thinking. The steps of the problem-solving cycle are what we refer to as metacomponents, or higher order executive processes that are used to plan, monitor, and evaluate problem solving (Sternberg, 1985). First, students need to recognize the existence of a problem (e.g., the need to write a term paper). Second, they need to define exactly what the problem is (e.g., what the topic of the term paper will be). Third, they need to allocate resources for the problem (e.g., how much time to spend on the term paper). Fourth, they need to represent information about the problem (e.g., using note cards, outlines, etc.). Fifth, they need to formulate a strategy for solving the problem (e.g., getting the paper done). Sixth, they need to monitor their progress as they solve the problem (e.g., is the paper getting done or has one gotten stuck on some aspect of it). Finally, they need to evaluate their work after it is done (e.g., proofread the paper and see how it reads).
• Strategy 3: Teaching for Creative Learning
  I believe that, to a large extent, creative thinking represents a decision to do thinking certain ways and to do certain things. To teach students to think creatively, they need to learn to make these decisions (Sternberg, 2000). These decisions include, among other things, (a) redefining problems rather than merely accepting the way problems are presented to one, (b) being willing to take intellectual risks, (c) being willing to surmount obstacles when people criticize one's attempts at being creative, (d) being willing to work to persuade people of the value of one's creative ideas, and (e) believing that one truly has the potential to produce creative ideas in the first place.
• Strategy 4: Teaching for Practical Learning
  Part of teaching for practical thinking is teaching students to adopt certain attitudes in their intellectual work (Sternberg, 1986). These attitudes include ones such as (a) combating the tendency to procrastinate, (b) organizing oneself to get one's work done, (c) figuring out how one learns best, (d) avoiding the tendency to use self-pity as an excuse for working hard, and (e) avoiding blaming others for one's own failings.

Some General Principles

In teaching for successful intelligence, one is helping all students make the most of their skills by addressing all students at least some of the time. It is important to realize that teaching for successful intelligence does not mean teaching everything three times. Rather, one balances one's teaching strategies, so that one is teaching in each of the ways part of the time. An advantage of this procedure is that one does not have to know each student's exact strengths and weaknesses. By teaching in all of the ways, one is addressing some students' strengths at the same time one is addressing other students' weaknesses at each point. Balancing teaching strategies guarantees that one will be addressing all students' strengths at least some of the time. But one does not want only to teach to strengths, as students also need to learn how to compensate for and correct weaknesses.

It is also important to ensure that one's assessment practices match one's teaching practices. Sometimes, teachers teach in one way but assess in another way. For example, they may encourage critical thinking in class, but then give tests that merely measure recall. Students quickly learn that the real game of getting good marks in the class is not the apparent game. The students then respond to the way they are assessed, not to the way they are taught. So it is crucial that the teacher value the same things in his or her assessment as in his or her teaching.

Does Teaching for Successful Intelligence Work?

Teachers want-indeed, some demand--some level of assurance that, if they take the trouble to use a method of teaching, it really will work. We have done a series of studies showing that teaching for successful intelligence really can work, at least in the instances in which we have examined it. The common element of all these studies is the possibility that when students are taught for successful intelligence, they are better able to capitalize on their strengths and to correct or compensate for their weaknesses, so that they learn at higher levels. Although the data from the studies are not conclusive, they are at least suggestive of the value of teaching for successful intelligence.

In a first study (Sternberg, Grigorenko, Ferrari, & Clinkenbeard, 1999), for example, we identified high school children identified as gifted analytically, creatively, practically, in all three ways, or in none of these ways, for their patterns of analytical, creative, and practical abilities. We then taught these children a rigorous psychology course that either fit their pattern of abilities particularly well, or did not do so. For example, a highly creative child might receive an instructional program that emphasized creative learning and thinking (good fit), or one that emphasized memory learning (not so good fit). We found that children who were taught in a way that, at least some of the time, enabled them to capitalize on their strengths, outperformed students who were not so taught.

In a second study (Sternberg, Torff, & Grigorenko, 1998a, 1998b), we taught third-grade students social studies and eighth-grade science in one of three ways. Either we emphasized just memory learning, or primarily analytical (critical) thinking, or teaching for successful intelligence (memory, analytical, creative, and practical learning). All students received the same quantity of instruction and for the same time period, and all students received the same assessments for memory learning as well as for analytical, creative, and practical learning. We found that students who were taught for successful intelligence outperformed students who were taught either for memory or critical thinking, pretty much regardless of grade level, subject matter, or type of assessment. Even on memory assessments, the children taught for successful intelligence outperformed the children in the other two groups.

In a third study (Grigorenko, Jarvin, & Sternberg, 2002), we helped primarily inner-city urban students at the middle and high school levels develop their reading skills. At the middle-school level, reading was taught as a separate subject-matter area, whereas at the high-school level, reading was infused into other subject-matter areas, such as English, science, foreign-language, and history instruction. Students were taught either for successful intelligence or in a standard way that emphasized memory-based instruction. The students who were taught for successful intelligence outperformed the students taught in the more conventional way on all assessments, whether for vocabulary or reading comprehension, and whether emphasizing memory-based, analytical, creative, or practical thinking.

Conclusion

Successful intelligence involves teaching students for memory, as well as analytically, creatively and practically. It does not mean teaching everything in three ways. Rather, it means alternating teaching strategies so that teaching reaches (almost) every student at least some of the time. Teaching for successful intelligence also means helping students to capitalize on their strengths and to correct or compensate for their weaknesses. We believe we have good evidence to support teaching for successful intelligence.

Teaching for successful intelligence improves learning outcomes, even if the only outcome measure is straightforward memory learning. We therefore encourage teachers seriously to consider use of this teaching method in their classrooms-at all grade levels and for all subject-matter areas. Teaching for successful intelligence potentially provides benefits at multiple levels. It helps students to achieve at a level that is commensurate with their skills, rather than letting valuable skills, which could be used in facilitating learning, go to waste. It helps schools reach higher levels of achievement as a whole. And in these days of school accountability, reaching higher average scores is a goal virtually every school wants to reach. Finally, it helps society make better use of its human resources. There is no reason for a society to waste its most precious resource-its human talent. Teaching for successful intelligence helps ensure that talent will not go to waste.

References

Grigorenko, E. L., Jarvin, L. & Sternberg, R. J. (2002). School-based tests of the triarchic theory of intelligence: three settings, three samples, three syllabi. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27, 167-208.

Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Beyond IQ: A triarchic theory of human intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sternberg, R. J. (1986). Intelligence applied. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.

Sternberg, R. J. (1997). Successful intelligence. New York: Plume.

Sternberg, R. J. (2000). Creativity is a decision. In A. L. Costa (Ed.), Teaching for intelligence II (pp. 868-106). Arlington Heights, IL: Skylight.

Sternberg, R. J., Forsythe, G. B., Hedlund, J., Horvath, J. Snook, S., Williams, W. M., Wagner, R. K., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2000). Practical intelligence in everyday life. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2000). Teaching for successful intelligence. Arlington Heights, IL: Skylight.

Sternberg, R. J., Grigorenko, E. L., Ferrari, M., & Clinkenbeard, P. (1999). A triarchic analysis of an aptitude-treatment interaction. European Journal of Psychological Assessment,15(1), 1-11.

Sternberg, R. J., Nokes, K., Geissler, P. W., Prince, R., Okatcha, F., Bundy, D. A., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2001). The relationship between academic and practical intelligence: A case study in Kenya. Intelligence, 29, 401-418.

Sternberg, R. J., & Spear-Swerling, L. (1996). Teaching for thinking. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Sternberg, R. J., Torff, B., & Grigorenko, E. L. (1998a). Teaching for successful intelligence raises school achievement. Phi Delta Kappan, 79, 667-669.

Sternberg, R. J., Torff, B., & Grigorenko, E. L. (1998b). Teaching triarchically improves school achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 374-384.

Sternberg, R. J., & Williams, W. M. (2002). Educational Psychology. Boston: Allyn-Bacon.

Author Notes

Preparation of this article was supported by Grant REC-9979843 from the National Science Foundation and by a government grant under the Javits Act Program (Grant No. R206R000001) as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U. S. Department of Education. Grantees undertaking such projects are encouraged to express freely their professional judgment. This article, therefore, does not necessarily represent the positions or the policies of the U.S. government, and no official endorsement should be inferred. Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Robert J. Sternberg, Director, PACE Center, Yale University, Box 208358, New Haven, CT 06520-8358. E-mail: Robert.Sternberg@yale.edu.

¹ In my earlier work (e.g., Sternberg, 1985), I proposed a "triarchic theory" of human intelligence. The present theory builds on the earlier one by defining intelligence in terms of people's ability to choose the personal and professional goals they set for their own lives.

² Because this article is brief, it is not possible to describe each of the kinds of teaching in detail. More details are contained in Sternberg and Grigorenko (2000).