UbD/DI Chapter 9

This chapter takes everything that we have learned about backward design, differentiated instruction, and multiple intelligences, and puts it all together. It was nice to see a fully fleshed out lesson plan and see how each of the components work with one another to really give each student the most opportunities for meaningful and engaged learning. Seeing how everything comes together not only makes it more realistic to me, but it also helps to see why we plan lessons and units this way. I really liked how it summed up each aspect that we have already learned, but it put them all together. While I will be utilizing the backward design in my classroom, I know there will be times where I cannot remember how or why we incorporated a section of the WHERETOs or other elements of the model, and this chapter will be a good resource for answering any questions I might have.

MI Chapter 14

This chapter poses the idea of an additional intelligence that Gardner is working on. This new intelligence is existential intelligence, which is “a concern with ultimate life issues” (182). Armstrong suggests that this can be used in the classroom by asking students to think more about certain topics and delve deeper into the meanings behind them. This intelligence is seen in classrooms that analyze literature a lot because students are always asked to think further about topics such as theme and meaning when reading a text.  I know I will be finding ways to use this intelligence in my classroom because it has such an influence in the way literature is analyzed and interpreted. I think it will be somewhat easy to incorporate this intelligence into my classroom in ways that might not be as obvious to students like some of the other intelligences (kinesthetic) might. It is important to work with this intelligence, whether it is considered one or not, because it teaches students to think deeper about every topic.

MI Chapter 13

This chapter describes several different professions and explains what multiple intelligences are connected to each. One point that this chapter brought up is that exposing students to just one or two careers at an early age is detrimental to their future career choice.  By giving students a variety of careers to explore, they are not locked into focusing on one multiple intelligence area and can instead choose a career that encompasses multiple intelligences. I think the list of careers and multiple intelligences associated with them will be helpful in guiding students to select careers that they are not only interested in, but also allow them to use more than one of their intelligences.  I think it might be interesting to have students use the lists and create some kind of product that compares their intelligences to those that each career they are interested in requires.

MI Chapter 11

Chapter 11 talks about different ways that the multiple intelligences can be used to assist students in special education.  One really good point the chapter brought up is that most people classify students with disabilities by what they are not able to do instead of classifying them by what they are able to do.  Not only does this help by identifying what and how they learn best, it also increases their self-esteem, knowing that they are in fact capable of doing something like all of their classmates are. Using the multiple intelligences in conjunction with a student’s IEP really tailors the lesson for them, helping them to succeed as well as some of their classmates who might be struggling in a similar area but to a lesser degree.  I will keep this in mind as I am planning lessons, whether I have students with IEPs in my classroom or not.  Using the multiple intelligences is beneficial for all students, but can have an added benefit for students with various disabilities.

MI Chapter 7

Activity centers were the focus of this chapter, arguing in favor of using them to enhance the multiple intelligences in the classroom.  Four types of activity centers were presented—Permanent Open-Ended, Temporary Open-Ended, Temporary Topic-Specific, and Permanent Topic-Specific.  Each center serves a different function, but they all relate to the intelligences.  I feel like this type of activity center would be more beneficial in an elementary classroom, where you would have the students for the entire day and could therefore coordinate time spent in the activity centers more easily, but I do think there are applications for a secondary classroom. Instead of having multiple activity centers, one for each intelligence, it might be more possible to combine a few of the intelligences and make an activity center or two based on those intelligences.  I like the idea of devoting a corner of the classroom to a reading and/or writing center, where students would have a different atmosphere for working and could potentially be more productive. The size of the classroom can also have an impact on how possible it is to have activity centers. Elementary classrooms have more room because the desks for elementary students do not need to be as big as desks for high school students do, so there is more space left in an elementary classroom.  I think it will just take a lot of creativity to find ways to incorporate activity centers into the secondary classroom.

MI Chapter 8

This chapter contained many different strategies on classroom management using the multiple intelligences to more effectively interact with students. Some examples that were provided in the chapter were using different techniques to get the students’ attention, such as writing something on the board for linguistic students or using hand motions for physical/kinesthetic students.  It also gives suggestions on how to work with students who have behavior problems and how the multiple intelligences can be used to address the problems in a more personalized manner.  I think the suggestions will be helpful for my classroom, though some of them might need to be modified for an older group of students.  In my experience, several of these strategies have worked well for classrooms of all dynamics, so I feel comfortable incorporating them into my classroom.  I also think that using approaches based on the multiple intelligences will be beneficial to all of my students.

MI Chapter 6

This chapter expanded on the ideas presented in chapter 5 and provided many different examples of how to use the various intelligences in the classroom. The chapter was broken down into the 8 intelligences, and for each intelligence there were five different examples of concepts that could be used to address and incorporate the intelligences into the classroom.  For instance, one of the examples given for spatial intelligence is color-coding, which helps students to connect like things together and distinguish between different things.  This is an activity that I am particularly interested in because there are so many options for color-coding in an English class. Other subject areas can benefit from an activity like this as well, and it could even be an ongoing activity that students refer back to throughout the year, building a database of terms or opinions or whatever it might be that they color code. That’s only one of the options for special intelligence, and there are four more for that particular intelligence alone.  The other seven intelligences have five examples for each, which when compiled in the format that this chapter has them, creates an outstanding database of sorts of MI activities.

MI Chapter 5

This chapter makes the argument that standing in front of the classroom lecturing students isn’t the best way to teach for all students.  Because each student has different strengths in different intelligence areas, lectures are not the most effective teaching method for all students.  They can still be used and be purposeful for some students, but other students need other strategies to meet their intelligences.  This chapter lists various other teaching approaches that will meet their intelligences, such as kinesthetic or logical methods.  It also suggested a good way for brainstorming activities that meet each of the intelligences for a unit.  This brainstorming idea seems really simple but really powerful, and I definitely think that I will use it in my classroom to vary the intelligences that my lessons meet. The chapter provides a sort of database for different activities and it will be helpful to refer back to it when I am planning my lessons in the future.

UbD/DI Chapter 7

The WHERETO model organizes teachers’ lessons by posing various questions that ask the teacher to think more about the learner. Some of it deals with engaging and hooking students at the beginning of the lesson, and some of it deals with helping the learner with the material.  I have seen this model only briefly before, but I have a feeling that I will see it more very soon.  It will be a good model to help guide my planning and my instruction because the questions it poses ask me to focus on the students more than the material.

UbD/DI Chapter 6

This chapter focused on being a responsive teacher and responding to the various elements of the classroom that affect learning and how that is considered part of differentiated instruction. Responding to students in ways other than just answering questions can lead to lesson plans changing on the spot or in the future or it can result in clarifying something for a confused student.  It could also mean changing the lesson from class to class depending on the situation and the students in each group.  I liked the analogy between the classroom teacher and the jazz musician because both incorporate practiced/ rehearsed material into their “performance,” while large pieces of it are left for improvisation, depending on the situation.  I think this will mostly help me to begin thinking about various ways to respond to students.

MI Chapter 10

This chapter focused on how the MI theory relates to assessment in the classroom.  Armstrong posed the idea that there should be a variety of assessments given, one option for each intelligence, so that students can complete the assessment in the intelligence they are strongest in.  This idea of having multiple assessments creates options for students, which can connect to tiering the instruction.  I particularly like that Armstrong believes “assessment experiences and instructional experiences should begin to appear virtually indistinguishable,” (148), which I think a lot of teachers would have a problem with.  They want to teach their lessons and then they want to administer the test, but then they are only catering to one or two intelligences. When they are indistinguishable, it means that both are learning experiences for the students.  I will definitely try to create assessment options that fit each of the multiple intelligences so that each student can do their personal best.

FIAE Chapter 6

The scenario at the beginning of this chapter stuck out to me because I have faced similar questions many times in my schooling career.  It is nothing less than frustrating when a teacher uses a question like that and then expects you to be able to read his or her mind.  The part of the chapter that I found myself connecting my content area to is the section about root words and how it isn’t just a quiz asking students to spit out the definitions of the root words, but to use their knowledge of each root to define various words.  As someone who waited until five minutes before the roots quiz to quickly memorize each definition, I think I would have preferred something more along the line of what the book suggests because it would have required me to put more effort into it.  There were also some good points about making sure that the test questions and prompts are valid and that you aren’t inundating students with too many questions of one type.  These seem like obvious points for teachers to consider, but in my experience at least, they are often overlooked, which makes it difficult for students to take the test to the best of their ability when there are other factors at play. 

FIAE Chapter 5

This chapter was about tiering different assignments, which helps learners who might not be hitting the standard and are instead below or above it.  Tiering is a method of differentiation that either assists students by guiding them a little more or challenges their thinking by asking more thought-provoking questions.   Although I had been exposed to tiering before, I hadn’t really seen how easy it is to tier assignments or the benefit of it for more than just students below the standard.  After realizing how advantageous tiering can be, it will definitely be something that I incorporate into my classroom, and there are fun ways like the RAFT, which will make it easier for me to do so.

FIAE Chapter 4

Chapter 4 had a lot of examples of the three different types of assessments, portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessments.  Portfolios are good because they show progress and improvement over a period of time, but they can be difficult to maintain sometimes.  Rubrics, if structured well, can serve as good tools not only to guide student work, but to assess it as well.  With rubrics, it is important to remember that parallelism is necessary for students to understand what the rubric is asking for.  If the rubric isn’t clear than it is hard for the students to know what it is they were supposed to be doing, especially if the rubric was passed out at the beginning of the assignment.  Student self-assessments are a tricky method of assessing students, but if they are crafted appropriately then they can be really beneficial to both teachers and students.  You just have to keep an eye out for the students who will say that they did everything just the way it was supposed to be done instead of accurately assessing their work.  I would really like to use portfolios in my classroom, and will probably attempt a variation on them at the very least, and I know I will be using rubrics and self-assessments, so the examples for both from this chapter will be helpful.