MI+B2+Chapter+12

Abstract/ Synthesis by Diana Quinlan
__Abstract__ This chapter is all about cognitive development, memory, and using the M.I. theory to improve both of these. According to Armstrong, in order for students to be [|successful], it is necessary for teachers to teach to the specific intelligences of their students. Using the different intelligences to teach will help students retain more information than they would if only one intelligence was addressed because people remember things differently. An auditory learner may remember information from a lecture just fine but a musical learner will remember the information better if he/she can connect it to a song or rhyme. Teachers today are not only responsible for teaching students their specific content. It is also a teacher's job to to make sure know how to learn. Without the knowledge of how to learn and retain information there is no point in teaching anything else. This is an example of a Christopherian Experience which is just teaching the surface of specific content without addressing the deeper meaning of that subject.

__Synthesis__ After reading this chapter everyone agreed that how students learn is more important that what they learn. If you can't retain the information then why bother teaching it in the first place? Almost everyone said that the section on memory was very helpful because it provided several good [|examples] of using the multiple intelligences to help students retain more information. The spelling and song examples seemed to be the favorites. There were also several high school experiences which people wrote mentioned in their reflections. These experiences brought up after reading this chapter talk about what other teachers have done and how we plan to to the same things or do things differently depending on weather or not that experience was helpful to our learning goals. toc

Sarah McGinley
Multiple Intelligences Chapter 12: MI Theory and Cognitive Skills 2/23/10

This chapter talks about how students think and not what they think. Teachers need to teach students the different skills of thinking instead of worrying about what students are thinking ever minute. I believe that if students are taught to think a certain way then they are limited in their creativity. The way to get students to think for themselves and get creative about different activities or projects is to let the students think outside the box sometimes. There are four important topics to keep in mind, memory, problem solving, Christopherian encounters, and Bloom’s level of cognitive complexity. Not being able to remember something when asked does not mean that you have a bad memory it just means you are unable to retrieve information given the clues in the way you were given. If I asked someone to recite all of the counties as a list then students may not remember all of them. On the other hand if I started singing the song related to all of the counties and told the students to finish the song and write down all of the counties, then it is possible that they would recite all of them. This also relates to problem solving. It matters how you ask a question. For Christopherian encounters, the teacher must encourage students to think outside the box. When it comes to Bloom’s cognitive thinking, there are six different levels to understand, knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. I would like my students to think in a knowledgeable way but I would not like all of my students thinking in the same way. The classroom is a time of learning in a creative way and this is something I am going to encourage in my classroom.

Sarah Robinson
While reading this chapter it is learned that cognitive skills are learned in many ways through multiple intelligences. This chapter addresses the many obstacles that teachers face when teachers try to teach students who have problem with cognitive skills. I found it very helpful to read about how to improve student’s memory because I have problems with memory. The chapter teaches that musical learners when listening to music this will help their memory. For the cognitive skill of problem solving this chapter has taught that for linguistic learners to have them talk out loud, and this is something I will use in my classroom. This chapter has taught me something that I have never heard of, which is Christopherian Encounters. Teachers need to push students naïve beliefs and make students thinking and ask questions out of the box. An example of this would be having a bodily-kinesthetic learner explore outside of just getting up and exercising, it would be learning about facial expressions. This chapter touches on how important Bloom’s Levels of Cognitive Complexity is to teaching students how to excel in cognitive skills, and how to make it easier for students to learn according to their multiple intelligences. This chapter has given some great examples and ideas of how to help my students excel in school and life.

Diana Quinlan
Cognitive ability is an extremely important component in learning. It has gotten to the point that how students think is just as important as what they think. Memory is another important component in learning. Apparently helping students remember what they have been taught is one of the biggest problems schools all over the country face. The memory section of this chapter is very close to me because memorizing information was my biggest problem in high school. Howard Gardner says that memory is intelligence specific. The two most commonly used intelligences in schools are linguistic and logical. Unfortunately most students including myself do not excel in those two intelligences. To help with the memorization issue, schools should expose students to memorizing techniques in all the different intelligences. I personally like the example of using song to memorize important information. If I had been exposed to such techniques I am sure I would have been more successful in my classes. If I can expose students to memorizing techniques in all eight intelligences then they can determine which strategies work best for them and apply them to all their classes and assignments including mine.

According to the MI approach to learning, the how is as important as the what. Understanding how students process knowledge and see the world around them is vital to their learning. The exasperated teacher who can’t understand why students are not retaining knowledge would be wise to consider the MI way of operating. Memory for example has always been something seen as a strength or weakness. It is not that simple. Every intelligence has its own memory skill-set. The person who can name a song in three notes has a specific knack for musical memory. A naturalist can remember facts about wildlife, places, all manner of flora and fauna that would amaze others. The idea then is to utilize each intelligence memory to aid learning. To me, being a better educator means helping students improve memory and cement-in knowledge. The chapter spells out several ideas to this end. Unfortunately they don’t seem very useful. Another idea that I really liked however was “promoting christopherian encounters.” Providing a safe environment for students to jump over the edge of their own understandings is healthy and encourages growth. Used within the context of their own intelligence can lead to results that are rewarding. If Stravinsky hadn’t written Rite of Spring, would the world of music be as rich today? Pushing the envelope has led to the worlds greatest artistic achievements.
 * Jason Malbon**

Mike Lawson
I really was interested with this chapter because I have developed a theory that runs right with cognitive development. My theory is that there is one class in a students history that allows their minds to learn how to remember and how to study. This class could happen in elementary school, or even in college. The student develops thinking strategies which allows them to use time and information much more effectively. I liked how Armstrong stated that it is almost more important now that kids develop that before they really learn anything. I think this is true. If the earlier years of education were spent on developing memory and finding out what intelligence is most predominant in that particular student, then learning and memorizing would come very easy throughout high school and college. Allowing students to dive deeper than the base level knowledge is something that I will try to do very hard. Being a history teacher this will be one of my largest challenges.

Alicia Kenison
We must think about the ways our students learn to assure achievement. A memory is an important thing and in these days so many children and teens don’t have to think because of media influences, video games and the internet. The US lacks in cognitive skills because of their inability to correctly problem solve. Armstrong emphasized how a memory should be based on intelligence specific mechanisms. All eight intelligences are afflicted so we must work with everything to encourage memorization. We also must consider Bloom’s taxonomy, which comes in six levels (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). All of these factors build a road map for our student’s growth throughout the year. To keep progress moving, I think I will bring the brainteasers and the word memorization into my classroom. My English teacher in high school took the time every Friday to go over a brainteaser and get out brains moving. I believe this helped our cognitive skills improve. With the use of MI, we can keep cognitive skills and problem solving flowing and allow our students to grow to their full potential. I believe a lot of what Armstrong said in this chapter will travel with me throughout my teaching career.

Jared Merrifield
Chapter 12: MI Theory and Cognitive Skills

This chapter goes deeper into how the multiple intelligences can be used to perfect how students think, rather than what they think about. The first skill the chapter mentions is memory, which is the one with which teachers seem to be the most concerned. I can plainly see how MI can be incorporated into helping students remember lessons, as I have experienced it for myself. For example, I can remember a lesson much better if I read it to myself (linguistic/intrapersonal), rather than having someone read it out loud to me (interpersonal, even musical). Although once again a lot of the methods suggested are not appropriate for older students, I will certainly implement similar strategies, and perhaps refer back to these ones for a little inspiration. General association would be sufficient, if I can get creative that is. I enjoyed the examples of famous people who shared how they used their intelligences in the problem solving process. When I first read the heading, the first thing that popped into my head was “logical/mathematical.” Shame on me! Although I usually associate problem solving with the logical intelligence in my WHERETOs, I am fully aware that this is not exclusive, and I believe it shows in my lesson plans. I also appreciated the section on Christopherian encounters, even though I had no idea what that meant at first. I am already practicing this in a linguistic sense, since my lesson focuses primarily on analyzing literary texts. Many of my classes in just about every subject started with a teacher challenging our beliefs, and then by the end of the school year we had those beliefs proven wrong through our own observations.

Eric Cole
This chapter deals with the theory that how students think is more important than what they think about. Now while there are many interesting items in this chapter, the one notion that I really agree with, and wish to use in my classroom is the idea that we need to challenge students to think “outside the box” and get them away from established norms. Just like Christopher Columbus did when he sailed to the “edge” of the world in order to prove that it wasn’t flat. Students think way to highly of textbooks and of what we tell them as teachers. They truly believe that our word is gold, and it should automatically be believed. This is not the case at all though. Students need to not be afraid to challenge us, and be excited about debating us on a variety of topics. By doing this, students will be able to think more deeply for themselves, and establishes their own beliefs which, in my opinion, is a crucial part of education.

Susanna Cooper
This chapter made some good points about how I should focus on how students think, not what they think. I can see how this is important. If I believe that my students will learn just like me and I only give them papers that use my way of learning, then I am a really bad teacher. I should be trying to find out how my students learn best so that I can present the information I am teaching them in such a way that they can understand it quickly. I loved the spelling example. Spelling was always something I struggled with, so I can relate to finding a different way to learn words instead of plain old memorization. Reciting words just puts them in your short term memory. If a student created a song or rhyme like the book suggested, they might remember the words in the future, instead of just forgetting them when the test is done. I know that I love to find little tricks or remembering words. It makes it fun and they really do stick. This section of this chapter on cognitive thinking reminded me of my own experience in high school. We were given logical puzzles to solve. These word puzzles would be written in weird ways and we would have to figure out the phrase by the way the words were written. Like the phrase inside out may have had the word inside on the inside of a box and the word out, outside of the box. These puzzles really help students use deeper thinking. It is good practice, and as the chapter said in the reference about Einstein: the only way we get better at thinking, or anything, is by doing it over and over again. The more I encourage my students to do something that is challenging for them, the easier it will become because that part of their brain has grown. I really liked the quote “over the edge”. I feel that sums up what we are responsible to do. As teachers, it is our job to push students to and “over the edge”. We want them to think outside the box, beyond the obvious.

Scott A. Bowden
This chapter was interesting in that it made me think about how to "push the envelope" in my classroom. I think that I need to have my students do more than simply learn words and numbers, but to have them think about them in a variety of ways. It makes sense that students think in many different ways, so as I teach, I need to integrate those methods into my teaching. I now see the deeper uses of having stage 3 implement all the different intelligences into my lessons. It's useful for students who have different learning styles and proclivities to learn in a way that best suits them, and not that best suits me as a teacher. I need to put my students first in learning, so MI is the best way to do that. Many of my past teachers used only three or four of the intelligences and never targeted ideas from a naturalist or musical way. I feel that music and naturalism is important, even if they aren't my strongest suits. Moral of the story, MI allows a teacher to put the students first, and that's how it needs to be.

Jared Boghosian
With the rise of the Multiple Intelligence theory, "how" a student thinks is more prevalent than "what" they are thinking about. I found the section on memory very insightful. Just like there are many ways to reach the multiple intelligences of your students, there are many different ways to activate your students' ability to memorize information. And luckily for me the examples for the MI memorization techniques revolves around spelling. I thought the logical-mathematical method of spelling memorization was especially eye-opening, I would have never thought of using 1s and 0s like that! This chapter has proved to me that it is not impossible to think of eight different ways of refining simple skills like problem solving and memorization.

Amanda Fitzpatrick
There were a couple of points in this reading that I did not agree with. For instance, the section when it talked about how to allow students to memorize different subjects better. In my opinion, this is probably the worst thing a teacher can do. I think that in order to really teach students things we have to reach them on a deeper level than just memorization--we have to get students to understand what they are learning and then have them apply it to their own lives. Instead of just teaching at the surface we have to dive deeper in. The second item that I had a hard time seeing succeeding in a classroom is having students spell spelling words how they believe they are misspelled before teaching students how to actually spell them. In my mind, this engraves in students minds the wrong way to spell words before actually learning the lesson, and thus would be detrimental in the success of the lesson. However, the rest of chapter did have some information that made more sense. For example, how the multiple intelligences can be applied to Bloom's Taxonomy for Higher Thinking. If students can use the content they are being taught and manipulate it in various ways that signify the different intelligences then they have definitely learned and comprehended the material in my opinion.