Institute of Education

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World-renowned Authority in Cognition and Education Prof. Howard Gardner to Present at IOE

World-renowned Authority in Cognition and Education Prof. Howard Gardner to Present at IOE

We are thrilled to announce the upcoming regular session of the IOE ‘Modern R&D in Education’ Weekly Seminar Series 2022 that will be held online next Tuesday, February 15, from 4 to 6 pm Moscow time.

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Zoom Room Id: 932 9266 0472

Access Code: 156965

In this session, Dr. Howard Gardner (Harvard University) will present a newly released volume titled The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be (MIT Press) that he has co-authored with Dr. Wendy Fischman.

About the Speaker

About the Speaker

Dr. Howard Gardner is a developmental psychologist and the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He is Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero and has also served as Co-Director of The Good Project since 1995.

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Gardner earned his BA in Social Relations at Harvard College (1965). A year later, he started a Doctorate in Developmental Psychology at Harvard where he worked closely with psychologists Roger Brown and Jerome Bruner, and philosopher Nelson Goodman. Gardner then completed a postdoc fellowship at Boston Veterans Administration Hospital, and subsequently stayed to work there for another two decades. In 1986, Gardner was appointed a Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Howard Gardner owes his recognition and high accolades bestowed by global academia to the prolific input that he has been making across dimensions of psychology, sociology, and the science of learning. To date, he has authored hundreds of research papers and more than 30 books that have been released in over 30 languages. Gardner is arguably best known for coining the Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

Theory of Multiple Intelligences

In the nutshell, Gardner’s theory posits that human cognition unfolds along a variety of channels that are relatively discrete from one another. This conceptual perspective challenges what the conventional intelligence theory has proposed (i.e., the correlation among abilities, as well as traditional measures like IQ tests that typically only account for linguistic, logical, and spatial abilities). So far, eight intelligences have been identified: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. Gardner and his fellow researches have also considered two additional intelligences: existential and pedagogical. Gardner’s idea that there is more than one dimension whereby we can define and categorize human intelligence has resonated widely with educators across the globe.

In 1967, an educational program called Project Zero got underway at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, which initially focused on arts education and has since been scaled up to span a wide variety of educational domains. Howard Gardner and David Perkins were founding Research Assistants and later Co-Directed Project Zero. Project Zero's mission is to delve into the underlying mechanisms of and to enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, humanities, and STEM education.

Jointly with William Damon, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and several others, Gardner has also been spearheading research at The Good Project on the nature of good work, good play, and good collaboration.

Book at a Glance

In the last decade, together with Wendy Fischman and other colleagues, Gardner has been co-directing a major study of higher education in the United States. An important output from this endeavor, The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be shares firsthand accounts by students and staff of their experiences of college life and their views on U.S. academia. The authors emphasize the need for colleges to embrace more robust intellectual, ethical, and social strategies so students tap into their full potential as multifaceted creative individuals for enhanced educational and social outcomes. Anchored in evidence drawn from a vast wealth of fieldwork, the volume offers compelling recommendations on how colleges could possibly unleash their better, more socially- and intellectually-aligned versions of themselves.       

Book Summary by the Authors