WICS

WICS: A Model for
Teaching and Learning

Robert J. Sternberg
Tufts University
Contact Information
Robert J. Sternberg, Dean

School of Arts and Sciences
Tufts University
[email protected]
Organization
• Introduction
• The Nature of WICS
• Teaching for WICS
• Research Support
• Caution
• Conclusions
Global Mission of Presentation
• To demonstrate how to teach
and assess students for their
learning using the WICS model
—to help all students achieve at
an optimal level.
What is WICS?
• Wisdom
• Intelligence
• Creativity
• Synthesized
Why WICS?
• You need CREATIVE skills and attitudes to come
up with ideas
• You need ANALYTICAL skills and attitudes to
decide whether ideas are good ideas
• You need PRACTICAL skills and attitudes to
make your ideas functional and to convince
others of the value of your ideas
• You need WISDOM to balance the effects of
ideas on yourself, others, and institutions in both
the short and long terms
A Problem with Traditional
Education
• Traditional education tends to
“shine the spotlight” on certain
students almost all of the time, and
on other students almost none of
the time.
• The result is that some students are
placed in a much better position to
achieve than are others.
But…
• The students who are not placed in
an optimal position to achieve may
be just as able to achieve at high
levels as the students placed in a
position to achieve. Moreover, the
advantaged students will not
necessarily be more successful
later in life.
Views of Intelligence, Schooling, and
Society: Structure of the Closed System
Ability Testing
Instructional Practice
Achievement Testing
Partial Disconnection
Achievement in the Outside World

Society: Varieties of Closed Systems
• Conventional Ability Test Scores

• Socioeconomic Class
• Gender
• Religious Group
• Caste at Birth
Society: Varieties of Closed Systems
• Height
A Problem with
Traditional Education
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: The Vicious Cycle
Low Expectations
Low Achievement
Reward
The Elements
The Concept of
Successful Intelligence
Successful intelligence is
• the ability to achieve success in life,

given one’s personal standards,
within one’s sociocultural context;
The Concept of
• in order to adapt to, shape, and

select environments;
The Concept of
• via recognition of and capitalization

on strengths and remediation of or
compensation for weaknesses;
The Concept of
• through a balance of analytical,

creative, and practical abilities.
Motivation for “Triarchy of
Abilities”
• Alice:
– A student high in memory and
analytical abilities
• Barbara:
– A student high in creative abilities
Motivation for “Triarchy of
Abilities”
• Celia:
–A student high in practical abilities
• Paul:
–A student high in analytical and
creative abilities but low in
practical abilities
The Triarchic View of
Intelligence
There are three aspects of
intelligence:
• analytical
• creative
• practical
The Concept of
Conventional (Analytical)
Intelligence
Creative Practical
Intelligence Intelligence
The Concept of Creativity
• Creativity is one’s skill in generating

ideas that are
– Novel
– Good
– Task-appropriate
Creativity as a Decision
• In large part, creativity represents a
decision to defy the crowd—to “buy low
and sell high” in the world of ideas
The Challenge of Creativity
• People are afraid to defy the crowd
because of
– External pressure
– Internal pressure
The Concept of Wisdom
• Wisdom is the use of intelligence,
creativity, and knowledge
• Toward a common good
• By balancing intrapersonal,
interpersonal, and extrapersonal
interests
• Over the long and short terms
The Concept of Wisdom
• Through the infusion of values
• By adapting to, shaping, and selecting
environments
WICS, Instruction, and
Assessment
• WICS can serve as a basis for teaching
and learning by combining processes of
wisdom, intelligence, and creativity in an
integrative, transdisciplinary way
Bases for Achievement
• Learning and thinking skills
• Learning and thinking dispositions
Instructional and Assessment
Techniques
• Balanced use of instruction and
assessment that is
–Memory-Based
–Analytically-Based
–Creatively-Based
–Practically-Based
Teaching/Assessing for
Memory-Based Learning
• Remember
–Recall
–Recognize
Teaching/Assessing for
Memory-Based Learning
–Who?
–What?
–Where?
–When?
–Why?
–How?
An Example from My
Classroom
• The cerebellum is in the
– *A. hindbrain
– B. midbrain
– C. left brain
– D. right brain
An Example from My Classroom
For most people, comprehension

of language occurs mostly in
the ____ hemisphere of the
brain.
Analytical Skills
• analyze
• compare and contrast
• evaluate
• explain
• judge
• critique
Analytical Attitude
• Recognize existence of problem

• Define problem
Analytical Attitude
• Mentally represent problem

• Allocate resources to problem
• Formulate strategy to solve problem
Analytical Attitude
• Monitor results of strategy

• Evaluate results
Analytical Evaluation
• To what extent is the product
– Informed?
– Logical?
– Organized?
– Balanced?
An Example from My
Classroom
• Critique the ethics behind
Stanley Milgram’s studies of
obedience, discussing why you
believe that the benefits did or
did not outweigh the costs of
the research.
Creative Skills
• create
• design
• invent
• imagine
• suppose
Creative Attitude
• Redefine problems
• Analyze solutions
• Sell solutions
• Recognize strengths and limits
of knowledge
Creative Attitude
• Persevere in surmounting
obstacles
• Take sensible risks
• Attain self-efficacy
• Find what you love to do
• Tolerate ambiguity
Creative Attitude
• Continue to grow
• Maintain a sense of perspective
and humor
• Allow time
• Defy the crowd
Evaluation of Creative
Products
• To what extent is the product:
– Informed?
– Novel?
– Compelling?
– Task-appropriate?
Construct-Validation Studies
• The Confluence Study
– Writing Stories
– Drawing Artwork
– Creating Advertisements
– Solving “Scientific” Problems
An Example from My
Classroom
• Suppose you gave the Wechsler
Intelligence Scale for Children
(WISC-IV) to children growing up in
a remote African village in Kenya.
What kinds of results might you
expect in comparison with results
from a large American city? Why?
Practical Skills
• Use
• Apply
• Implement
• Employ
• Contextualize
Practical Attitudes
• Allocate study time effectively
• Find places and times to
concentrate
• Relate what you learn to what
you know
Practical Attitudes
• Work toward a concrete goal
• Know how and when you will be
assessed
• Look for uses in what you learn
Evaluation of Practical
Products
• To what extent is the product:
– Informed?
– Feasible with respect to time,
place, and resources?
An Example from My
Classroom
• How do gambling casinos
employ reinforcement
techniques to keep people
gambling at slot machines?
Teaching for Wisdom
• Teaching for
– Dialogical thinking
– Dialectical thinking
– Balanced thinking
• Over time
• Over place
• Over persons
An Example from my Classroom
• What would be the most equitable

use of high-stakes tests for
purposes of college admissions?
Principles of Teaching
• The goal of instruction is the

development of expertise
through the creation of a well
and flexibly organized, easily
retrievable knowledge base
• Instruction should involve

teaching for analytical, creative,
practical, and wise thinking as
well as for memory learning
• Assessment should also involve

analytical, creative, and
practical, and wisdom-related
components as well as memory
components
• Instruction and assessment should

enable students to:
– Identify and capitalize on
strengths
– Identify and correct or
compensate for weaknesses
• Instruction should teach students
the skills and knowledge needed to
think in an integrative,
transdisciplinary way
Sample Course Requirements
• Examinations
– Multiple-choice or short-answer
items
– Choice of 2 out of 3 (or 4 out of 6)
essays (which are, respectively,
primarily analytical, creative, or
practical)
Sample Course Requirements
–Term paper/project
(unassigned topic that relates
students’ disciplinary interests
to psychology)
–Oral presentation (assigned or
unassigned topic)
Advantages of Teaching for WICS
• Enables students to capitalize on

strengths and remediate or
compensate for weaknesses
• Enables students to encode learning
material more deeply and elaborately
Advantages of Teaching for WICs
• Enables students to encode learning

material in multiple ways
• Motivates students more strongly
• Enables students to learn and think in
an integrative way
• Prepares students better for actual job
requirements
Research Applications
When we teach for WICS,

student achievement increases
The Aptitude-Instruction
Interaction Study
• When high-school students are
taught in a way that matches their
pattern of strengths at least some
of the time, they perform better
than when they are not so taught
The Triarchic Science-Social
Studies Main-Effects Study
• Students (in grades 3 and 8) who are
taught triarchically (for social studies
and science) outperform students who
are taught either primarily for critical
thinking or primarily for memory,
regardless of how the students are
assessed (I.e., for memory or for
analytical, creative, or practical
achievement)
The Reading Study
• When working-class middle school and
high school students are taught
reading across the curriculum,
triarchically taught students outperform
students taught conventionally in
vocabulary and reading-
comprehension measures, regardless
of the form of assessment used
The Language Arts and Math
Study
• When fourth-grade students were
taught triarchically, they performed
better, in general, than when they were
primarily taught for critical thinking or for
memory.
The Mathematics Study
• When Alaskan Yup’ik (Native
American) high school students are
taught geometry concepts
triarchically, they outperform
students who are taught the same
concepts conventionally, regardless
of the form of assessment used
Caution: People Can Be Smart
but Unwise
• The “Unrealistic-Optimism” Fallacy
• The Egocentrism Fallacy
• The Omniscience Fallacy
• The Omnipotence Fallacy
• The Invulnerability Fallacy
For Further Information…
– Sternberg, R. J. (1997). Successful
intelligence. New York: Plume.
– Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L.

(2000). Teaching for successful
intelligence. Arlington Heights, IL:
Skylight
For Further Information…
– Sternberg, R. J., & Spear-Swerling, L.
(1996). Teaching for thinking.
Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
– Sternberg, R. J. (2003). Wisdom,

intelligence, and creativity
synthesized. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Web Sites
• www.yale.edu/pace
• www.yale.edu/rjsternberg
Final Conclusion
When we teach for WICS:
• Individuals are better recognized for and are
better able to make use of their talents
• Individuals learn in an integrative,
transdisciplinary way
• Teachers teach and assess students better,
with better results
• Society utilizes rather than wastes the talents
of its members
Invitation to Collaborate
• We welcome the opportunity to
collaborate with individuals and
institutions all over the world. If you
are interested in collaborating with us
in one of our ongoing projects or in a
new project, please contact me at
• [email protected]

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WICS: A Model for

Teaching and Learning

Robert J. Sternberg, Dean

Achievement in the Outside World

• Conventional Ability Test Scores

• the ability to achieve success in life,

• in order to adapt to, shape, and

• via recognition of and capitalization

• through a balance of analytical,

• Creativity is one’s skill in generating

For most people, comprehension

• Recognize existence of problem

• Mentally represent problem

• Monitor results of strategy

• What would be the most equitable

• The goal of instruction is the

• Instruction should involve

• Assessment should also involve

• Instruction and assessment should

• Enables students to capitalize on

• Enables students to encode learning

When we teach for WICS,

– Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L.

– Sternberg, R. J. (2003). Wisdom,

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