WICS
WICS
WICS
• 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
• 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
• 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
Successful Intelligence
Conventional (Analytical)
Intelligence
Creative Practical
Intelligence Intelligence
The Concept of Creativity
• 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
• analyze
• compare and contrast
• evaluate
• explain
• judge
• critique
Analytical Attitude
– 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
• 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]