Teaching Philosophy
The goal is to help students improve their grades and actually learn! These objectives are equally important. A high GPA without learning is pointless. The idea is to get an education! On the other hand, when learning exceeds what is reflected in a student's grades, that's better - but reality is that grades are important to opening doors and creating opportunity. Both real learning and good grades are keys to long term educational success.
My style of teaching is cooperative and adaptable. Every student is different in terms of attitude, energy level, particular strengths and weaknesses, etc. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. I get a feel for how the student is responding to other sources (textbooks, instructors, parents, etc.) and do my best to complement the package in the most effective way.
I favor developing mental intuition over memorization. Memorization is useful and important to a degree. Yet it does not always lead to long term retention, and it can be counter-productive to gaining a meaningful understanding of the material. Once a student truly understands a concept, things tend to click, and studying becomes less arduous and more rewarding.
My goal, in a sense, is ultimately to render myself obsolete. Rather than nurture a continuing dependency on my guidance, I want to equip students with skills and disciplines that will foster the independence that will enable them to succeed as they move deeper into their educational experience and out into the real world.
For other uses, see Intelligence (disambiguation).
| Human intelligence |
|---|
| Abilities and Traits |
| Models and Theories |
| Fields of study |
Intelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving.
Intelligence is most widely studied in humans, but has also been observed in animals and plants. Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines or the simulation of intelligence in machines.
Numerous definitions of and hypotheses about intelligence have been proposed since before the twentieth century, with no consensus reached by scholars. Within the discipline of psychology, various approaches to human intelligence have been adopted. The psychometric approach is especially familiar to the general public, as well as being the most researched and by far the most widely used in practical settings.[1]
Contents |
History of the term
Main article: Nous
Intelligence derives from the Latin verb intelligere which derives from inter-legere meaning to "pick out" or discern. A form of this verb, intellectus, became the medieval technical term for understanding, and a translation for the Greek philosophical term nous. This term was however strongly linked to the metaphysical and cosmological theories of teleological scholasticism, including theories of the immortality of the soul, and the concept of the Active Intellect (also known as the Active Intelligence). This entire approach to the study of nature was strongly rejected by the early modern philosophers such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume, all of whom preferred the word "understanding" in their English philosophical works.[2][3] Hobbes for example, in his Latin De Corpore, used "intellectus intelligit" (translated in the English version as "the understanding understandeth") as a typical example of a logical absurdity.[4] The term "intelligence" has therefore become less common in English language philosophy, but it has later been taken up (without the scholastic theories which it once implied) in more contemporary psychology.Definitions
How to define intelligence is controversial. Groups of scientists have stated the following:- from "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" (1994), an editorial statement by fifty-two researchers: A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.[5]
- from "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" (1995), a report published by the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association: Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person's intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions, and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat different, definitions.[6][7]
| Researcher | Quotation |
|---|---|
| Alfred Binet | Judgment, otherwise called "good sense," "practical sense," "initiative," the faculty of adapting one's self to circumstances ... auto-critique.[8] |
| David Wechsler | The aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment.[9] |
| Lloyd Humphreys | "...the resultant of the process of acquiring, storing in memory, retrieving, combining, comparing, and using in new contexts information and conceptual skills."[10] |
| Cyril Burt | Innate general cognitive ability[11] |
| Howard Gardner | To my mind, a human intellectual competence must entail a set of skills of problem solving — enabling the individual to resolve genuine problems or difficulties that he or she encounters and, when appropriate, to create an effective product — and must also entail the potential for finding or creating problems — and thereby laying the groundwork for the acquisition of new knowledge.[12] |
| Linda Gottfredson | The ability to deal with cognitive complexity.[13] |
| Sternberg & Salter | Goal-directed adaptive behavior.[14] |
| Reuven Feuerstein | The theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability describes intelligence as "the unique propensity of human beings to change or modify the structure of their cognitive functioning to adapt to the changing demands of a life situation."[15] |
What is considered intelligent varies with culture. For example, when asked to sort, the Kpelle people take a functional approach. A Kpelle participant stated "the knife goes with the orange because it cuts it." When asked how a fool would sort, they sorted linguistically, putting the knife with other implements and the orange with other foods, which is the style considered intelligent in other cultures.[16]
Human intelligence
Psychometrics
Main articles: Intelligence quotient and Psychometrics
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