Hi Doreen,
You have a real good understanding of how you are going to use the multiple intelligences and learning preferences of your students to develop your instructional planning. By "reading" your students you are going to be able to customize your delivery for maximum impact.
Gary
My understanding of multiple intelligences will help me to better assess the different teaching styles necessary to ensure better comprehension among my students. Many of my students learn best through visual/spatial learning, but in this industry, interpersonal intelligence is key to success. While many of my students learn best via visual ques, they need to be able to engage in person to person contact. I plan to gauge my students' different ways of learning and adapt my teaching methods to fit those needs, while still incorporating the necessary types of intelligence required of their desired fields of study and pursuit.
Hi David,
Thank you for sharing these excellent points with us concerning the development of your own multiple intelligences and how to use them. You have a very comprehensive approach to your life and how you are living it. This brings so many opportunities to the classroom for your students.
Gary
by understanding the differences it will help me by knowing which students need more or less instruction. Who is a watcher/doer or who is a coaching student.
It will affect my teaching methodology by allowing me to incorporate different types of learning materials and methods into the instruction of the courses I teach.
It will allow me to plan for my instructional delivery by making me aware of which methods and learning styles I am teaching to and it will help me anticipate which types of learners will require further assistance and what type of assistance to provide them.
Understanding the multiple intelligences will assit me in planning my method of instruction by aiding in the method of delivery, so that more students are able to capture and apply the material being offered.
I would introduce not just lecture but interactive activities both group and individual, that will vary from the use of reading material to audio visual and multimedia use in studnet presentations.
I first learned about multiple intelligences while reading Uncommon Genius back in 1996. I was intrigued by the aspects of intelligence and decided to develop each of them. I had studied Math for 9 years and physics for 6 years - reasoning and logical skills were fairly developed. I also liked art (illustration, etc.) and had a pretty good spatial sense. Over the years I've studied music [musical], taken up martial arts [kinesthetic], practiced meditation [intrapersonal], learned some programming [linguistic] and finally, I took up teaching to develop my interpersonal skills.
Considering intelligence as a measure of awareness, in every waking moment there's so much more to appreciate in life. I explain this to my students and encourage them to do likewise. Consequently, I can also be more empathic when dealing with students' learning styles.
Hi Corey,
Good point. I teach from 4 until 10 pm so I can relate to your point. Each class becomes a challenge because you are working hard to keep the students engaged and focused after a day's work and knowing they are facing long class sessions. We get to use all of our instructional strategies to pull off successful classes and then we can take a deep breath and get ready to do it all over again.
Gary
In a school structure with 10 week cycles, it is sometimes hard to bring people along if they need time to think about things. 4 1/2 hours of instruction at one time brings a lot of information and can be very difficult for certain individuals to digest.
When teaching I am facing different kind of intelligences, so I try to diversify the teaching techniques to be able to reach all of my students.
The perfect time to encourages them to transfer from theory to practice ans actually applying the new knowledge ans skills they will learn from our class. This way the student will use their inteligence to help them grow in their career field.
The inteligence is the best measured by materializing the acquired knowledge.
Hi Aaron,
You are doing a number of things that reflect on your professional abilities as an educator. I commend you on the variety of instructional deliveries that you are incorporating in your classes. Keep up these efforts. I know your students appreciate your student centered approach.
Gary
To the best of my ability, I try to meet the needs of as many learning styles as possible. Unfortunately for my students, I prefer to deliver content through reading assignments and lectures. However, I make sure that I break up my lectures with classroom activities that help students apply new content in small groups. By putting students in small groups, they have to get up and move, learn to interact with others outside their peer groups, and solve the assigned puzzle.
I also use different types of assessments in to determine if a student is learning. I use application based tests - essay tests - where students need to demonstrate comprehension of the material, papers, and presentations.
I have learned through experience that varying my assignment strategics help different types of intelligences shine and do well.
Still, in the classroom when I deliver content through lecture and reading assignments, I try to use as many visual and active reinforcements as possible to meet the needs of as many students as possible.
Hi Peter,
This is a part of developing as a professional educator. Over the years you observed and learned how students prefer to learn and then developed instructional delivery formats to meet those preferences. Keep up the good work.
Gary
I believe I have always used a holistic approach and tried various methods to get information across. It has been obvious to me for 30+ yrs than not everyone learns by the same methods.
I'm not really doing anything differently, I just have larger classes
Hi Nichelle,
Good approach and one that is very dynamic when you have it well planned. You are offering your students the opportunity to learn in their learning preferences and use their multiple intelligences.
Gary
Learning styles and multiple intelligences is what I have always used when preparing to teach my class. I really get a excited when student reach their "Ah-Ha." The Ah-Ha occures when students are inputting information using their learning style. Once informations is stored students will be able to retrieve information and apply successfully.
I do not know any other way of teaching.
Multiple intelligences will affect my teaching methodology by challenging me to go beyond my own favorite ways to learn (verbal and visual) to design other activities around kinesthetic and interpersonal, just to name two others. This is always a challenge for the instructor but one we must accept to meet student needs.
I feel that learning the multiple intelligences of our students is similar to knowing the different learning styles they all have. It will help me with my teaching methodologies by preparing lesson plans to match the different types. For example, I can use different types of vusiual aids and have the students create visuals for assignments. I can use some auditory such as books on tape (since I teach English), and I can have the students work in groups more often.
Hi George,
You make a number of very good points in relation to using multiple intelligences as learning tools. If we know how students process information we are going to be able to target these intelligences and everyone is going to have more success.
Gary
