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.