Howard Gardner's Five minds for the future.

Howard Gardner's latest book divides 'intellectual approaches' into 5 types of minds for the future. These are:

1. The disciplined mind- schooled in basic subjects like art, history... and master of one


2. The synthesizing mind- able to make sense of disparate information


3. The creating mind- asking new questions and finding imaginative answers


4. The respectful mind- an appreciation of different cultures


5. The ethical mind- responsibility as worker and citizen.

This is an interesting way to divide 'minds' and instead of developing a heirachy as Bloom and Bereiter have done, he has different categories of mind. The focus of this is for management in the work place, rather than education (not that it should make a difference).

I would consider respectful and ethical to be in the same type of category- but that may be because I am a social studies educator from NZ. I would also like to see a focus on being connected through networks, which I see as more than synthesizing, and essential in the creating process.

Beyond Blooms taxonomy

Bloom's taxonomy has been useful tool in developing educational tasks for the past 40 years. It was based on an underlying assumption that the mind behaves like a filing cabinet. This assumption is being challenged as the implications of learning in the digital age is explored further.
As an alternative, Bereiter and Scardamalia (1998) suggested 7 levels of approach to knowledge.

1- Knowledge as individuated mental states. Knowing that one person may know things that someone else does not.
2- knowledge as itemizable mental content. Telling knowledge in the order in which it comes to mind.
3- knowledge as representation. Telling knowledge taking into account the listener/ reader.
4-knowledge as viewable from different perspectives.
5- knowledge as personal artifacts. Viewing oneself as constructing knowledge.
6- knowledge as improvable personal artifacts. Viewing a theory in terms of what it can and can't do, what its strengths are and where it needs improvement.
7- knowledge as semi-autonomous artifacts. knowledge objects, like other constructed objects, take on a life of their own and can be considered independently of their personal relevance.
Full paper.

I find this a useful schema when thinking about teaching for understanding, particularly of conceptual understanding.