Fast forward your training with accelerated learning

How multiple intelligences can be key to learning success. By Patrick Haywood, lead coach, WWP Training.

Patrick Haywood

Imagine a training session where you are asked what you would like to learn. What about how you would like to learn it and what you want to achieve with what you’ve learned? That’s accelerated learning – a results-orientated process where the learners play a central part in both content and delivery.

Accelerated learning has been used in adult education for at least 40 years. Trainers have used it in business since the late 1970s to increase retention and speed up delivery without diminishing content.

What makes accelerated learning unique, practitioners say, is that:

• it is based on a scientific understanding of how the brain and senses work
• it customises both content and delivery to match learners’ needs
• it establishes clear learning objectives to achieve results.

Accelerated learning follows an experiential learning cycle. It works by stimulating all the senses instead of just the learner’s ability to think and to memorise, the model relied upon by traditional education. There are various approaches to doing this but all of them seem to have the same principles – that students have ‘preferred learning styles’ and that they learn best when the instructor’s methods match these.

What are preferred learning styles?

Harvard professor of education, Howard Gardner, developed the theory of multiple intelligences. This says, in effect, that IQ should not be measured as an absolute figure in the way that height or weight are. It's a crucial blunder, he maintains, to assume that IQ is a single fixed entity that can be measured by a pencil and paper test.

Gardner argues that it's not how smart we are but how we are smart. As human beings, we all have a repertoire of skills for solving different kinds of problems. He defines intelligence as ‘an ability to solve a problem or fashion a product which is valued in one or more cultural settings’.

Gardner’s work challenged the traditional teaching model, which is based on just two intelligences: mathematical or logical, and linguistic. He argues that this has given us a warped and limited view of our learning potential and suggests that it is the combination of all seven, non-related forms of intelligence that releases full human potential.

Multiple intelligences

Linguistic intelligence

The ability to read, write and communicate with words. Authors, journalists, poets, orators and comedians are obvious examples of people with linguistic intelligence.

Logical-mathematical intelligence

The ability to reason and calculate, to think things through in a logical, systematic manner. These skills are highly developed in engineers, scientists, economists, accountants, detectives and members of the legal profession.

Visual-spatial intelligence

The ability to think in pictures, visualise a future result, to imagine things in your mind's eye. Architects, sculptors, sailors, photographers and strategic planners all need this. You use it when you have a sense of direction, when you navigate or draw.

Musical intelligence

The ability to make or compose music, to sing well, or understand and appreciate music, to keep rhythm. It's a talent obviously enjoyed by musicians, composers, and recording engineers. But most of us have a musical intelligence that can be developed - think of how helpful it is to learn using a jingle or rhyme.

Bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence

The ability to use your body skilfully to solve problems, create products or present ideas and emotions. This is obviously displayed in athletic pursuits, dancing, acting, artistically, or in building and construction. You can include surgeons in this category but many people who are physically talented - ‘good with their hands’ - don't recognise that this form of intelligence is of equal value to the other intelligences.

Interpersonal (social) intelligence

The ability to work effectively with others, to relate to other people, and display empathy and understanding, to notice their motivations and goals. This is a vital human intelligence displayed by good teachers, facilitators, therapists, politicians, religious leaders and sales people.

Intrapersonal intelligence

The ability for self-analysis and reflection – to be able to quietly contemplate and assess one's accomplishments, to review one's behaviour and innermost feelings, to make plans and set goals, the capacity to know oneself. Philosophers, counsellors, and many peak performers in all fields of endeavour have this form of intelligence.

Naturalist intelligence

The ability to recognise flora and fauna, to make other consequential distinctions in the natural world and to use this ability productively – for example, in hunting, farming, or biological science. Farmers, botanists, conservationists, biologists, environmentalists would all display aspects of this.

Implications for trainers and trainees

Both trainers and delegates can benefit from having an understanding of these intelligences. The trainer will see the need to cater for a range of intelligences when setting tasks and providing input. Trainees who understand their learning preference will be better equipped to access and retain information in their preferred learning style and work on developing strengths in other strategies for learning.

WWP runs learning and development programmes in accelerated learning. For more information, visit WWP or call 0870 606 0088.

For other seminars to develop your skills, visit Mastercourses.

July 2006