Intelligence is an accumulation of facts. It comes in many forms. Plus, it is made up of a variety of cognitive skills and abilities. It includes the ability to learn new things and get new information. So, fluid and crystallized intelligence refer to the ability to think quickly and the ability to reason.
Fluid Intelligence
Students that have the function to think logically and solve a problem in various situations have fluid intelligence. This type involves the identification of patterns and relationships. Students utilize logic to problem solve. Thus, they can generate, alter, and change the information in real-time. Students with fluid intelligence solve puzzles. Also, they use a variety of problem-solving strategies. Thus, a description of ‘street smart’ references fluidity in thinking.
There is no current test that students can take that demonstrates fluid thinking. So, a test simply measures how easily a student solves problems with a variety of strategies.
Crystallized Intelligence
Crystallized refers to the knowledge students acquire through education and life experiences. It is the use of pre-existing knowledge. Because of that, it is an accumulation of facts, skills, and information learned in school. Also, learned information from experiences.
Crystalized intelligence is useful for games that involve trivia. It is usually long-lasting and improves with experience. Thus, it is closely related to long-term memory. Correspondently, fluidity is connected to short term memory.
Increasing the Smart
It is simple to increase learned information through books and experiences. However, it is more difficult to learn problem-solving skills without having students problem-solve. Students need to exercise their creative skills to train the brain in fluidity. Therefore, it’s important to introduce new activities that challenge students to think and solve. They need to socialize and meet new people with different experiences. Thereby, crystalized acquires knowledge and fluid uses the knowledge to reason.
