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Perkins Theory of Learnable Intelligence

David Perkins developed a theory of learnable intelligence that describes three types of intelligence: neural, experiential, and reflective. Neural intelligence involves innate neurological abilities and cannot change. Experiential intelligence is knowledge gained from experience, while reflective intelligence refers to thinking strategies. Perkins argues that the combination of experiential and reflective intelligence, which is learnable, determines an individual's overall level of intelligence rather than just neural intelligence alone. By increasing experiential knowledge and reflective thinking skills, people can learn to be more intelligent over time.

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Mohd Kamarulzaman Omar
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2K views2 pages

Perkins Theory of Learnable Intelligence

David Perkins developed a theory of learnable intelligence that describes three types of intelligence: neural, experiential, and reflective. Neural intelligence involves innate neurological abilities and cannot change. Experiential intelligence is knowledge gained from experience, while reflective intelligence refers to thinking strategies. Perkins argues that the combination of experiential and reflective intelligence, which is learnable, determines an individual's overall level of intelligence rather than just neural intelligence alone. By increasing experiential knowledge and reflective thinking skills, people can learn to be more intelligent over time.

Uploaded by

Mohd Kamarulzaman Omar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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5/11/2020 Lesson Printout - Study.

com

Student:

Transcript:
Perkins'
Theory
of
Learnable
Intelligence
https://study.com/academy/lesson/perkins-theory-of-learnable-intelligence.html

What is learnable intelligence? Find out in this lesson and learn to differentiate between the three types of
intelligence described by David Perkins in his theory of learnable intelligence.

David Perkins and Intelligence


The year is 1967. A young graduate student is working on a doctoral degree in mathematics and
artificial intelligence at MIT when he becomes one of the founding members of Project Zero. This
research group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education will embark on a 25-year mission to
explore learning processes in children, adults and human organizations. In the process, he will boldly
develop a new theory of intelligence that no one has proposed before.

Mathematics and artificial intelligence is a bit of an unusual background for a theorist on human
intelligence, yet David Perkins has developed a powerful theory that describes intelligence as three-
dimensional. These three dimensions are the neural dimension, the experiential dimension and the
reflective dimension.

Three Types of Intelligence


Neural
intelligence involves the genetically determined abilities of a person's neurological system.
Perhaps borrowing from his artificial intelligence background, Perkins calls this the 'hard-wired,
original equipment' that determines the processing speed of our brains, similar to computer
hardware. There is not much that can be done to increase neural intelligence. This is the type of
intelligence that is measured by traditional IQ scores.

Experiential
intelligence is the knowledge you obtain through experience. Experiential intelligence
is accumulated as we navigate through the various contexts of life. Because of this, the more we
experience, the more we expand our experiential intelligence. Experiential intelligence encompasses
all of our experiences as a whole. Since this type of intelligence can be accumulated, people who
are exposed to stimulating environments have an intellectual advantage over those who are exposed
to less stimulating environments. If we want to follow through on the computer analogy, we would
think of this as the different programs that we can run.

Reflective
intelligence refers to a person's ability to use and manipulate their mental skills. These
are the thinking strategies we use to effectively utilize our neural and experiential intelligence. This
includes self-monitoring and self-management. You can increase your reflective intelligence by
increasing your awareness of how you think and making changes to those patterns when necessary.
This would be like a computer's operating system. Reflective intelligence would utilize the hardware
to run its programs. Like operating systems, it can also be upgraded.

Learnable Intelligence

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5/11/2020 Lesson Printout - Study.com

We now have a working understanding of Perkins' three types of intelligence. How do these come
together to form his theory of learnable intelligence? Learnable
intelligence is the combination of
experiential intelligence and reflective intelligence. The main premise of learnable intelligence is
Perkins' belief that we can learn to think and act more intelligently.

Our reflective intelligence is the key to this opportunity. When we engage our reflective intelligence,
we can learn new strategies for problem solving or making decisions by directing our experiential
intelligence towards getting specific information that is most useful to us. In other words, we can
learn to be more intelligent even though we cannot make changes to our neural intelligence.

Let's think of a computer one more time. There is specific hardware that we have to work with (our
neural intelligence). The operating system (our reflective intelligence) determines how we will run
programs on the hardware and can be updated when a better operating system is needed. We
upload programs (our experiential intelligence) that are useful to us as we go about our work.
Through operating system upgrades and the addition of programs, we increase the usefulness of the
computer as a whole (or we increase our learnable intelligence).

Lesson Summary
David Perkins' Theory of Learnable Intelligence describes intelligence as being three-dimensional.
These three dimensions are the neural dimension, the experiential dimension and the reflective
dimension. Neural
intelligence is the genetically determined abilities of a person's neurological
system. Experiential
intelligence is the knowledge you obtain through experience. Reflective
intelligence is a person's ability to use and manipulate their mental skills.

The combination of experiential and reflective intelligence is learnable


intelligence. You are born
with neural intelligence, and it does not change, but you can increase your experiential and reflective
intelligence. Increasing this learnable intelligence in turn increases a person's overall level of
intelligence.

Learning Outcomes
After reviewing this lesson, you'll have the ability to:
Summarize David Perkins' background
Describe the three types of intelligence identified by Perkins
Identify what sets neural intelligence apart from the other two types of intelligence
Explain Perkins' Theory of Learnable Intelligence

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