Topic 4: Sternberg's Successful Intelligence Theory and WICS Model
This module discusses about how this theory of successful intelligence
may help in achieving success and introduce the model.
Learning outcomes
1. Explain Sternberg’s Successful Intelligence Theory and WICS
(Wisdom, Intelligence and Creativity Synthesized) Model
Learning content
What is Robert Sternberg's Successful Intelligence Theory?
Augmented from his Triarchic Theory, Successful Intelligence Theory contends that
intelligent behavior arises from a balance between analytical, creative and practical
abilities, and that these abilities function collectively to allow individuals to achieve
success within particular sociocultural contexts. In other words, it is the ability to
succeed a life, given one's own goals, within one's environmental context. There are
four skills included in the theory:
1. Memory skills help us recall facts and pieces of information and retain the
knowledge we acquire.
2. Analytical skills help us determine if a certain idea is good.
3. Creative skills allow a person to come up with new idea, usually answer a need
or solve a problem.
4. Practical skills enable a person to apply what one has learned.
The theory points "that some students who do not do well in conventional courses
may, in fact, have the ability to succeed, if they are taught in a way that better fits their
pattern of abilities.
Why WICS Model?
In the WICS model, intelligence is viewed as a set of fluid abilities to learn from
experience and to adapt to one's surroundings. It is a more recent model of how
humans think and reason that can help us understand how students will learn most
effectively. It aims to develop basic abilities to true expertise.
WICS stands for Wisdom, Intelligence, Creativity, and Synthesized. Sternberg
(2010) described the model as follows:
"The basic idea is that citizens of the world need creativity to form a vision of
where they want to go and cope with changes in the environment, analytical
intelligence to ascertain whether their creative ideas are good ones, practical
intelligence to implement their ideas and to persuade others of the value of their ideas,
and wisdom in order to ensure that the ideas will help achieve some ethically-based
common good, over the long and short terms, rather than just what is good for them and
their families and friends."
Application of WICS Model
The uses of the model include admission, instruction and assessment.
To teach analytically, make students use critical thinking. Design tasks and activities
that provide opportunity for your learners to
1. Analyze
2. Critique
3. Judge
4. Compare and contrast
5. Evaluate
6. Assess
To teach creatively, encourage and sustain student's creative ideas. Think out of the
box. Help your students to:
1. Create
2. Invent
3. Discover
4. Imagine if..
5. Suppose that..
6. Predict
To teach practically, have in mind real life situations where students can use what they
learn to meet their own and also other's practical needs. Let your students:
Apply
Use
Put into practice
Implement
Employ
Render practical what they know
To teach for wisdom, make your students learn to see and understand other's
perspectives. You teach for wisdom when you are able to move your students to:
1. try to find a common good
2. see things from other's point of view
3. balance your own interests with those of others and of institutions
4. look at the long term as well as the short term
5. reflect about how one can base his every decision on positive ethical values
6. appreciate that in life what is seen as true and effective may vary over time and
place.
Based on Sternberg and his colleague’s studies, the WICS model was successful for
teachers and theory learners because it:
1. celebrated the differences of learners through a supportive learning environment
2. made students remember better what they learned
3. build on the strengths of the learners
4. strengthened the motivations of the learners
metacognitive processes.
Teaching and Learning Activities
Read about Sternberg's Successful Intelligence Theory and WICS Model. Make
a summary of the four skills included in the theory
Learning materials and resources for supplementary reading.
Handouts (pdf) upload
Flexible Teaching Learning Modality (FTLM) adopted
Google classroom
Module
exercises
Assessment Task
Guide Questions
1. What is the relevance of the successful intelligence theory to you as a learner?
2. As a future educator, how will you apply WICS model?