MI+B2+Chapter+7


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Jared Boghosian
Just because you teach using many intelligences does not mean you are a 100% Multiple Intelligence educator. In addition to the curriculum, you need to set up a Multiple Intelligence friendly classroom. How do you promote the linguistic intelligence? Are there motivational posters with quippy text or quotations or is it a plain off-white colored wall of boredom? Be sure to have some structure or Routine to your classroom otherwise you will lose a lot of logical thinkers. Along the same vein, don't restrict your students to sitting in cold, hard, dirty desks. Let them move around flex those muscles that have been resting for an hour or so. An interesting idea proposed in the chapter was to split your classroom into four quadrants, with each one focused on certain activities. However, this concept read more along the lines of an elementary school or possible middle school, hardly convenient for my purposes in a high school.

Jared Merrifield
Chapter 7: MI Theory and the Classroom Environment

This chapter posed some interesting questions regarding classroom environment, the nature of which I have truly not given much thought. I suppose, because I am primarily a linguistic learner, the questions posed under the linguistic intelligence were the most familiar to me. However, I am aware that students are also concerned about class time span, healthy and appealing food, the voice inflection of the teacher and fellow students, and even how the classroom looks. I suppose that, no matter what one’s strongest intelligence is, every single one of these issues has concerned everyone from time to time. I know this is certainly true with me. I didn’t really learn much from the section that suggested the appropriate activity centers for each intelligence, for I have encountered most of them myself. The environment in which a class is taught definitely makes a difference. Let me put it this way: a spatial leaner would feel very irregular if his English class took place in the school gymnasium. Having the students feel comfortable is essential for their constantly growing knowledge.

Mike Lawson
Chapter 7: Multiple Intelligences Right after I read the title to this chapter I knew I was going to enjoy it. Being able to incorporate MI theory into the layout of my classroom makes me excited to set up my learning ecosystem. The one downfall to providing such an extensive list to future teachers is then letting them know how hard it will be to meet all intelligences needs in one classroom. I feel that the second most important component (next to creativity) to setting up a classroom which includes all the intelligences is space. The classrooms I experienced in high school were fairly somewhat small, and it wasn’t packed due to students. My graduating class was only 63. I could be wrong but incorporating all intelligences in a smaller classroom environment is very difficult. This chapter showed me that using the MI theory in everything I do is very important whether it be during the lesson, setting up my classroom or even when buying supplies for my room. Another section of this chapter that I liked a lot was the open-ended activity centers. I feel that board games are great for learning. Board games are also perfect for staying busy. Any students who may get done their work early could either work on homework or play a board game.

Classrooms can set the tone for teaching multiple intelligences. For students to feel comfortable, it helps to have a user-friendly environment conducive to learning. If we look at intelligences and consider unique daily needs, then we can make necessary adjustments. A learner with spatial needs would benefit from attractive wall hangings, art work, a well lit room…etc. A musical learner benefits from a teacher who varies his/her speech patterns. Is the teacher a monotone speaker or dynamic? Musical intelligence is not always about singing songs in class or playing instruments. You can set up a classroom nurturing to all learners, even before the teacher begins to teach. Activity centers also provide positive experiences for learners. An intrapersonal learner can benefit from a separate learning nook apart from others. A kinesthetic learner would enjoy a hands-on station to do crafts or other activities. As a sub, I enjoyed well organized classrooms with lots of different stations, nooks, and interesting things on the wall. Science room were a particular favorite because of the variety of artifacts. An intersting classroom can inspire learning.

Sarah Robinson
This chapter has taught the very good point that the classroom needs to be an environment that invites all sorts of multiple intelligences, so every student feels comfortable to learn. This chapter gives you some great questions to answer to see weather your classroom is friendly to all the different learning styles of students. One question I want to make sure to answer in my future classroom would be, do my students have the chance to get up and move around to ensure their motivation to learn? Another question that I found helpful for my future classroom is, does my classroom have colors to stimulate my student’s brains to learning? These and many more questions are important to answer, to ensure that the environment within the classroom is open to multiple intelligences. This chapter has given the great advice to use multiple intelligences activity centers, which include four sections. The first section is quadrant 1 that is called permanent open-ended this is where students have a center that is year long with the same type of information provided at the center. An example of what could be found for interpersonal learning students could be a table where students could just sit and talk and reflect about that day’s lesson. Quadrant 2 is called temporary open-ended, which is a center that can be changed and taken down easily. This chapter gives the great advice to use this center as a game center. Quadrant 3 is called temporary topic-specific, which is a center that has topics that change with the changing subjects of the classroom. An example of this would be students were studying Native Americans; each different learning style would have a different job that was made for the aspects of that learning style. Finally quadrant 4 is called permanent topic-specific, which means that this is for teachers that have long-term themes in their classrooms. Each learning style will have an assignment on the long-term subject that is being taught and will have their choice of how to complete it. This chapter has really given some great ideas of how to build a classroom that is welcoming to all the multiple intelligences and how to ensure that learning is enjoyable for all.

Alicia Kenison
What is a classroom? Does it have to be a room with four walls and seats in rows? Does it have to be a teacher standing in the front or students reading for a textbook? The answer is NO, a classroom is whatever you want to make it. A classroom should be a happy, warm, welcoming environment. According to Armstrong, if we include the 8 intelligences into our classroom environment the day will go by more smoothly. We have to think about the 8 intelligences as questions for the class. How is the day sequenced? Is the furniture arranged properly? Do we have windows t look out? How is the atmosphere? I really liked the quadrant idea, but I don’t know how feasible it would be in a high school classroom because it seems “too” childish. With quadrants, I don’t know if a lesson could go be thoroughly taught. After all, we only have 90 minutes to teach in a day. Over all, Armstrong should some great ways to spread intelligences in the classroom.

Scott Bowden
All about different ways for students to express their interest in the 8 intelligences, this chapter brings up activity centers. Activity centers are ways for students to express their abilities in each intelligence as they so please. This idea is good in nature, but I would find it rather difficult to implement a "learning center" in my classroom. For elementary school, this is perfect because teachers have students all day and have less structure. Since I only have my students for a max of 120 minutes at a time, doing this takes up time that I need to teach and having my students learning a topic. I like the idea, but I doubt I could effectively implement it in my classroom for the lack of time and space I would have. The only possibility would be the temporary learning area for topic-specific activities. I could pick the places and let students have one or two days out of the unit to express it in a way of their choosing, but it wouldn't be a permanent fixture in my classroom. But I would be willing to return it for each topic if my students are interested in it too.

Susanna Cooper
When reading this chapter I felt like the MI activity centers were for younger aged kids. The example the book used was about the changing seasons. Most students know their seasons quite well by 7th grade and building something, or creating something about the season may get pretty boring for them. But perhaps the simplistic idea of the activity centers can be changed and built upon for my age group. The cool thing about the activity groups is I could easily see which areas my students were best at, plus I could keep the students motivated, moving from one group to another. This movement would be a form of classroom management because the students would be so busy they wouldn’t be likely to act up or get off topic with friends. I also agreed that the students shouldn’t have the same old seats each class because it limits the learning capabilities. Besides trying the four activity corners, I think that I would have all the student’s desks in a large circle, and each class I would take out small folded pieces of paper from the “class basket”. On the folded slip of paper would be some type of symbol that each students drew to represent themselves. I would randomly place the slip of paper on different desks around the room, mixing up and shuffling the order. When students came in they would find their slip and sit down. This would randomize who students sat next to each class and could help me notice and call on more of the class then the students I normally notice first. I loved the comment about the fly on the wall. If there really was a fly that was distracting everyone, since students are attracted to notice real animals of all types, then perhaps I could incorporate the fly into my lesson or assignment and use it to my advantage. For example, write a paragraph for the fly’s perspective at this moment in time. Having the class go outside and sit on the lawn reminded me of my poetry class that did that when writing our poem labeled “What is Grass”. Assignments like this would be fun for all students and would use the nature learning style at the same time!

Amanda Fitzpatrick
This chapter had a lot of information on how to incorporate the different intelligences into the classroom for long term activities. I definitely saw this as more of a elementary school activity as many of the ideas were not things that could easily be incorporated into the high school classroom, however some could be tweaked in a way that makes them high school friendly as well as tangents off from what the unit in the class is at any particular time. In elementary school I feel like there is more freedom with what can be done creatively in the classroom to get everyone involved with various intelligences, however if the section of the room that has activities for the different intelligences are used as a bonus for getting your work done early, it will be a way for students to explore the intelligences and eliminate down time. I'm having a tough time involving some of them ore obscure intelligences into my lesson plans, so this chapter gave me a couple ideas that I can elaborate off from in order to accommodate any learner.

Diana Quinlan
Chapter 7 of //Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom// deals primarily with the classroom structure. This chapter suggests using posters in the classroom, rearranging furniture in creative ways, and quietly playing background music. Basically teachers need to create a classroom environment which is going to benefit all students and their different intelligences. This will help to ensure student success. While reading this chapter I learned some pretty interesting ideas I would like to try in my classroom. Activity centers are one of those ideas. These are different sections of the room that are dedicated to the different intelligences. I could also change the posters and games in each center with each different unit. This will keep my students interested and engaged. I think that focusing on the ecology of a classroom is very important to students because it gets them away from the boring old school classrooms and provides them with new and interesting ways to learn.

Eric Cole
While a lot of the material in this chapter is very “No Duh” kind of stuff there was one section that I kind of enjoyed. I really like the section about the activity centers. Now I am not an expert on teaching yet. I know that may be hard to believe based on the way I write these blogs, and how opinionated I am, but I really don’t know everything yet. So, to have a resource full of ideas that I can pick out of, it is a pretty helpful thing. That is why I liked the activity centers. The sections got my mind working. If I am doing a lesson on Shakespeare what centers could I make to allow all the students in my class to be engaged and learning? The other item I found of interest was the question that the chapter asks at the end: Should activity centers be a choice? In my opinion, I think they should. Not all kids will like the idea of an activity center no matter how close it matches their intelligence, and it should be up to the student to decide what the best way for them to learn is.

Sarah McGinley
Multiple Intelligences Chapter 7: MI Theory and the Classroom Environment 2/9/10 The way the classroom is arranged can help or harm student’s learning. This chapter talks about how you are able to arrange your classroom in a simple ways that do not affect the student’s learning. These arrangements of the classroom could be good to help students with different intelligences. For example, having an activity corner in your classroom will reach out to that bodily kinesthetic or verbal learner. There are many different kinds of activity centers for each type of learner. The activity center could change themes in order to reach out to different learning styles. I think having an activity center in the classroom is a great way to reach those students who need activity to keep focused on a lesson and the student will learn a lot more if he/she is engaged in his/her learning style.