I become uncomfortable with the dogma of intelligences when we get blanket statements such as "there are six types of intelligences." I worry about this limiting out definitions of intelligence as much as the notion that there is ONE type of intelligence. Certainly, there are students who are more adept at online forum posts than in-class discussion... but they're still, in a way, socially interacting. So what type of intelligence is on display there? I wonder if it would be better to simply consider our students ALL intelligent. When I think about reflective thinking, I never forget to think about myself. That is, what types of road blocks to accessing student intelligences am I unknowingly throwing up? What can I do to allow easier access to student intelligences. The danger in this idea of six different intelligences is that, of course, some of these seem more valuable in the eyes of broader society. Students with a certain label on his or her intelligence may feel somewhat slighted, etc., and therefore be less willing to display that type of intelligence, or be more likely to slight that intelligence in favor of other, more socially valued ones, rather than intertwine them all.

So, the more I read about today's "entitlement culture," the more I think this term needs a dose of critical thinking. First of all, it's an incredibly broad term. What do we mean by entitlement? What do we mean by culture? And, furthermore, to think that our students feel entitled because the government somehow supplies so much to them seems to be a notion that comes from a very narrow worldview. I think students' focus on results is quite understandable. Especially in a career college setting, education is sold to prospective students as a gateway to a better career and, thus, a better life. Furthermore, we pitch students on the notion that they can earn a degree in less than two years, etc. That students want A's is not because they feel "entitled" to them, but because we've put some much emphasis on the end result--and when that result is "a better life," who can blame someone for being anxious to start that? That said, if we can figure out why each student feels like critical thinking is so much work, or doesn't want to spend the time on it, or simply isn't interested in it, we can better shift our pedagogy to address the concerns of those students and emphasize the utility of critical thinking in a way that is more effective.

When I was in massage therapy school, two of the greatest things for assisting memory I ever fell over was the power of music to aid in memory retention, and, the power of laughter to help memory recall. Classmates would crack a joke about a topic for discussion (especially in anatomy and physiology) or, someone would sing a song that would seem appropriate to the subject matter at hand. Come testing time, remembering the music, or, the joke, always made recall of the materials so much easier

Im always afraid that guided notes lock an instructor into one path of teaching and takes away the ability to be spontaneous, any one have this problem ?

Can one use a sort pre-test as a judicial review type application ?

i wonder if someone in this forum has a couple of good examples on how to test musical people and try to define their different type of intelligence.

I find that when teaching audio consoles, its best to take an concrete approach and then an abstract. First we talk about the specific components and how they work and relate to each other. then we actually bring up example situations where they incorporate the components. Anyone else follow this process ?

This has helped me teach students a standard process for setting up audio mixing consoles without having to constantly repeat myself in class. SSC- Sweet Sour Chicken - which really stands for Stereo mater fader Solo level Control room volumen

This is something that I do with my students from day one. I teach audio engineering (how to record and mix music). I tell students that I do not teach music I teach the engineering of music. The first few days of class I take them on a small tour of studios and small local clubs so they see what they are been trained for. This helps a lot in the future success of the student thru out the course and also in their career.

I teach audio engineering, this involves constantly listening to music. But before class I play a piece of music that gets the class ready for the days work. I'll usually play something similar to the work at hand, with this they now know the type of tonality and types of effects to use thru out the day.

This is something that I do with my students on a daily basis. To have them hear an audio effect (Reverb, Delays, compression, gating) and build that concrete memory helps them to picture that effect on other pieces of audio thru abstract memory.

Students retention is important becauses it allows proof that the instructor can hold class size

When I am discussing anatomy on the Skeleton, I directed the student's attention to the Bones Skeleton and point at the different parts. The students also have a chance to point at selected parts. We named the Bones Skeleton Mr. Bones and we have a lot of fun with visual learning using him.

While reading through this section I saw many helpful tips that I hadn't thought much about before, especially with regards to visual aides. Pondering the topics presented as made me see that we could easily combine the visual aides with lecture work sheets. An example of this could be an incomplete vindiagram that demonstrates the relationship between various topics. The students get the aide, while being forced to decode the lecture in order to find the answers they need to remember.

While reading through the third section of this class I couldn't help but think of Case Studies. I love to use case studies because they allow me to take the abstract information I provide during the lectures and make it applicable in a real work scenario. Often, giving an assignment for students to preview, followed by a lecture, and concluding with a case study allows the students to understand and relate to material that they would not have otherwise.

The introduction where you speak of the government dumbing us down by making the world a bit safer for our children is insulting and unnecessary. The implication that we would be better critical thinkers without safety standards is just silly. If I hit my head on an exposed bolt as a child, I wouldn't be any kind of thinker.

I am the externship coordinator for Medical Assisting. One of the issues coming up frequently is letting the student know that even if our curriculum teaches a competency one way, it doesn't make it the only right way. The students can become confused if the site does something differently, and will report back that "they are doing it wrong". I usually explain to the student that unless it illegal, unethical or immoral, it's usually a good idea to accept that method as one of many ways a task can be completed.

We should all be careful to consider what our own learning style is. How will the instructor's learning style color their perception of the learning styles of the students? How will it affect the preference of the style of delivery?

So, this is something I think about a lot. We can let students know that they need to strengthen their body of background knowledge, but we also know that no amount of background knowledge is ever going to be enough. I'm also not sure developing this kind of step-by-step process to critical thinking is useful, because critical thinking is by nature supposed to resist a step-by-step approach. The steps have to be examined, questioned, and so on. What I do in my own classes is to, essentially, find a way to overcomplicate everything that I can. If I can frustrate simplicity--and show the students that a simple solution is often an artifact of social constuctions and shortcuts--then I can showcase the usefulness of critical thinking. For example, the idea that 2+2=4 seems pretty simple and straightforward. But it assumes a whole ton of stuff about the way we see the world. Then again, how far do you go with something like that before it becomes ridiculous? Or is it already?

It is always important to give refuided notes so students are able to disect information.