The Changing Understanding of How We Learn–Part 1: We’re Not in MI Anymore!

MI!  It’s not the abbreviation for Michigan. In this case, it stands for Multiple Intelligences and it has been the primary guiding principle for how we think about learners and structure learning both in the church and in the classroom for over two decades.

But here’s the newsflash–MI IS OUT!  Even Howard Gardner, the author of Five Minds and creator of MI theory, stated at the Learning & the Brain Conference in 2011 that he was over the theory a decade ago and that educators should move on.

If Multiple Intelligence theory is out, then what’s in?

I learned about MI in seminary in a Christian education class in the late 70’s. For decades, I crafted educational experiences for learners, believing that they possessed one primary mode of taking in information. I even taught Christian education volunteers how to utilize MI in order to ensure a lesson engaged all types of learners.

I believed that if a learning experience were created utilizing a variety of modes to transmit information that individual learners would find the mode that most resonated with them and thereby they would automatically connect with the information and they would learn, retain and utilize the information. Without doing extensive qualitative research, I knew it wasn’t that simple and I could tell learning wasn’t always happening.

I’m sorry…..I wasn’t listening!

Unfortunately, most educators I have encountered in higher education became stuck in the auditory mode of transmitting information, i.e., the lecture. By the way, most pastors are stuck there too. Research indicates that this is perhaps the least effective method of teaching, unless some specific tools are utilized to enhance the learner’s auditory processing because most learners check out of an auditory presentation after ten minutes (the same is true of sermons!).  Professor Eric Mazur of Harvard advocates a shift from “teaching” to “helping students learn.” (Twilight of the Lecture, Harvard Magazine, Craig Lambert, March-April 2012)

Mazur was disturbed by an article in the American Journal of Physics by Professor David Hestenes in which Hestenes reported results from a specially devised test to evaluate students’ understanding of physics after an introductory course that focused primarily on rote memorization of formulas and basic information about physics. While the students could perform the functions of basic physics, Hestenes found that they held the same misconceptions after the course as they did prior to the course and lacked ability to connect the laws of physics with the real world. Mazur decided to try out the test on his own students and was dismayed to find similar results. The students could solve problems by rote by applying the formulas which they had memorized but failed to demonstrate “a real world understanding of the concepts behind the problems.”

Teaching or Helping Students Learn?

So are seminaries teaching or helping students learn? There is certainly a need to communicate content in the seminary classroom but is the method of communication helping the students learn the material in such a way that they can not only recall the information but be able to manipulate and apply the information in a variety of settings?  It seems pretty important for those involved in and responsible for seminary education to understand how students learn and to help them learn more effectively so that they, in turn, may help those whom they will serve to learn more effectively.

Learning is much more than simply transmitting information. Traditionally, educators have used retention as a primarily definition of learning. If a student can remember information on an examination or other form of assessment, then we determine that the student has ‘learned’ the information. Statistics indicate that most students forget 90% of what they learn in class after 30 days. Neuroscientists, such as John Medina (Brain Rules), have even more dismal data. If educators do not connect information to students’ prior knowledge, make it emotionally wired and visually stimulating, we have approximately 90 seconds before the information disappears.

Brain-Based Knowing

Educators also use understanding as a way of assessing learning.  Barbara Bruce (Our Spiritual Brain) asserts that learning involves not only understanding, storage and retrieval, but converting the new experience into lasting memory that has multiple links in the brain.

In Part 2 of this blog, we’ll examine some recent research on how students learn and begin to suggest ways in which seminaries might move toward more brain-based ways of helping students learn that incorporate different ways of knowing.

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