Yolanda U. Trapp
Successful intelligence involves using one's intelligence to achieve the goals one sets for oneself in life, within a specific socio-cultural context10. Why should teaching for successful intelligence - which involves kinds of analytical, creative, and practical abilities that go beyond those typically emphasized in the schools - raise performance even on tests of memory for learned material? There are two reasons:
First, when material is taught in a variety of pedagogically sound ways - in this case, for memory as well as analytically, creatively, and practically - students have more opportunities to learn and understand the material being taught. If they do not comprehend the material when it is taught in one way, they might comprehend it when it is taught in another. Thus their achievement is likely to improve.
Second, teaching material in a variety of ways enables students to make the most of their intellectual strengths and even to work toward correcting or at least compensating for their weaknesses. Students can learn the material in a way that fits their individual profile of abilities while simultaneously seeing how the material can be learned in a way that is not ideally suited to them. It is important to teach in a way that helps students both to capitalize on strengths and correct their weaknesses.
