What you already know about intelligence. How do you know if someone is intelligent or not?
Do you consider yourself to be intelligent? Why? What is your evidence for this?
Intelligence can be thought of in many different ways. Intelligence can be having strong working memory and speed of thought. Intelligence can be having a strong long-term memory and knowing lots of facts. Intelligence can be mathematical, linguistic, physical, musical, natural, social, emotional, etc. I typically think of someone as intelligent based on their ability to quickly connect old and new knowledge and apply it to a problem at hand.
I do think of myself as intelligent, at least in some areas. I have done well in typical academic settings - high grades, good schools, etc - but I also seem to be able to figure things out faster than most other people. I have surrounded myself lately, at least in my friend circles, with other highly intelligent people, so I sometimes feel not as intelligent when I compare myself to them. I don't have as good of a long-term memory as some of my friends - I can't quote facts and studies off the top of my head - but I do know how to find the information quickly. I'm also willing to try things out. That was one of the biggest issues with some of my employees - not sure if it's related more to intelligence or to entrepreneurialism, but my employees would often ask me to come do things for them because I "knew" how to do the task. But I didn't "know" how to do the task anymore than they did - I was just willing to try out a few options, google it for help, and figure it out.
Journal Entry:
During your own education, how has your "intelligence" been assessed?
How has this affected the educational opportunities you have been given?
What judgments have people made about you that have been affected by an assessment of your "intelligence"?
Do you consider yourself to be a "learner"? why?
While in school, I was of course graded - I consistently achieved high grades, even in high level classes, often without a lot of work - at least until I got to Caltech. At Caltech, I actually had to work in order to do well - and in classes that I wasn't interested in, I often didn't want to do the work. Earlier in grade school, my intelligence was assessed by an IQ test of some sort in order to test into the gifted program. I don't think I was ever told my IQ or a 'grade' on the test, but I do remember on the literacy portion, reading a passage at high school level and then the proctor just decided that we could stop and we didn't need to continue - I was in second grade. In order to get into the honors classes for high school, we had to take the SAT in eighth grade and also complete an essay. I got in the mid-high 600s on both the math and verbal sections. And for the essay, I remember that it was about a weird land where beings went around to different blocks, with clear bellys and their insides moving about as they traveled. The beings were cars and the insides were people - but I remember talking with several other people after taking the essay test who didn't get the analogy. On the way to college, I again took the SAT and ACT. I got 800 on the SAT math, 35 on the ACT, and 740 on the SAT verbal. I was disappointed in my verbal performance - I had been trying for a 750+. Thankfully one of my friends reminded me that when he applied to college, he was going to talk about all the extra classes he'd taken, all the leadership roles he had had, etc - but he wouldn't even mention his SAT score. A good reminder that intelligence and capacity to make a difference in the world is not measured by one test. Although because of my ability to test well, I've had an abundance of educational opportunities - attending high quality institutions, etc. The opportunities have also been in large part because of my family's financial resources and their commitment to spending on education.
Depending on who I'm talking with, I sometimes downplay my 'intelligence' in order to fit in. I'll say that I went to school in Los Angeles, but not necessarily mention Caltech. Or even when I was living in San Diego, a lot of people would exclaim that I must be really smart because I was going to UCSD. And now with doing my masters, I often won't say that it's through Harvard Extension unless I know that it will be taken well by who I'm talking with. Fitting in with the current situation is much more important to me than showing off or having people think that I'm significantly more intelligent than them.
I do consider myself to be a learner - I have way too many books and am enrolled in way too many MOOCs. I'm constantly interested in and learning about new things. I wouldn't say that I'll spend the time to learn anything, but there is a very wide range of topics that I am interested in and will take the time to learn about. Watching TV isn't something that I engage in (except when I visit my parents) - I'd much rather be on the internet or reading. :-)
Forum Post -
I think that Elon Musk is a great example of a person who may be considered highly intelligent or gifted, but is also an expert learner. He has consistently talked about putting in a lot of work in order to achieve more (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fl9LRgG3_A). Elon has definitely put in over 10000 hours in several different arenas.
He also talks about defining a goal and learning in order to move toward that goal - like the video talked about finding a specific interest, and kids will often learn faster if they're studying around their own interest. http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/07/16/how-did-elon-musk-learn-enough-about-rockets-to-run-spa...
Forum Response -
I agree with the statement that we can't have the same expectations for all learners, but we should ensure they reach 'maximum potential' for them in our classrooms. To claim that everyone has the same brain biology and can all do everything goes against cognitive science research, but that's not to say that we can't have high expectations for every student or that we shouldn't foster a growth mindset - because both of those things are also proven in research to raise achievement.
I think the point made in the videos about finding individual student's interest areas can help a lot to figure out what their max potential is. Also making sure that we know where they are to start and that we take them from the point - because we assume that they know something that they don't, they'll just be confused. And on the other hand, if we assume they don't know something that they do, then they'll just be bored. By personalizing their learning both by their level and by their interests, we can help all students to achieve a lot more.
One of the article readings makes the same points - although contradicts itself as it does. "I hope this disabuses you of any notion that your aspirations should be limited by any idea that you need a special level of IQ to achieve anything. ‘Even within science, IQ is only weakly related to achievement among people who are smart enough to become scientists. Research has shown, for example, that a scientist who has an IQ of 130 is just as likely to win a Nobel Prize as a scientist whose IQ is 180.’" from http://sandraleatongray.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/a-guide-to-intelligence-and-heritability-for-beginners/ The first sentence says that you don't need a special level of IQ to achieve anything, and yet the quote that she uses then states 'among people who are smart enough to become scientists'. While there may be little correlation above 120 or some cutoff, I'm guessing that there aren't any science Nobel Prize winners with IQs below 90.
We should provide educational opportunities from a young age (aka conception), and create healthy environments (food, exercise, low stress, low pollution, etc) to optimize everyone's potential - but we still all do have different brains and we'll be better at different things.
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