MI Chapter 12

This chapter takes the multiple intelligences to another level by showing how they can be used to help students think. As the chapter suggests, what students think about is not as important as how they are thinking. Using the multiple intelligences, we as teachers can push their thinking further using them to enhance their memory skills and other cognitive approaches. For example, if a student is struggling to remember a fact, concept, or skill, then they might just need another method to learn it. If reciting it multiple times doesn’t work, then maybe they need to draw a picture of it. This same idea can be applied to other areas that the student struggles with. Using the strategies of multiple intelligences can help students to increase their strengths. It can also help to push their thinking into new realms and levels that they had not previously encountered. I am in favor of using multiple ways to help students memorize information, and I think I will use it when I teach vocabulary and other similar topics. A former teacher of mine uses a graphic organizer for vocabulary words that asks students to define words, find synonyms, and draw pictures, all in one assignment, so I know that it is possible to incorporate multiple strategies into the classroom without dedicating hours of class time to one idea. I would also like to use the multiple intelligences to push students past the boundaries of their thinking so that they can really get into the depths of understanding.