Questions for the author:
1. I know that many teachers have been teaching for years
and see no need to make any modifications in their teaching
methods. How would you introduce such teachers to the theory
of multiple intelligences and convince them of its
practicality within the classroom?
2. Realistically, one cannot implement all seven
intelligences into one lesson. What would be your suggestion
as to the most important intelligences to emphasize if you
were teaching to a class for the first time and did not know
their strengths?
3. In your book, you suggest that multiple intelligences can
benefit classroom management by the teacher dealing with
each child according to his/her strength. Is this realistic
in a class of thirty children? What would be a realistic
model that you would suggest?
4. You mentioned a model MI school in Indianapolis where the
students have daily instruction in physical education, art,
music, Spanish, and computers. How do the teachers have time
in the elementary levels to teach all of the remaining
subjects and yet still keep up with the other schools?
Question for other readers:
5. In reflecting on your own school experience, how did your
teachers teach in respect to the theory of multiple
intelligences?
Submitted by Jennifer Moyers.
This book emerged from Thomas Armstrong’s work over the past eight years applying Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence within his classroom. The seven intelligence’s of multiple intelligence include; linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. The purpose of the book is to help stimulate continued reform in education. This book covers many things in relation to multiple intelligence from teaching strategies, schools, classroom management and curriculum development, plus many other interesting ideas.
The main reason why I chose this book is because I believe in
multiple
Intelligence’s. I was made aware of Gardner’s theory a few years
ago in other classes and found it to be rather fascinating and interesting.
I thought that this book would help in me in understanding the theory better
and give me many ideas how to help children in recognizing their MI, developing
curriculum for their MI and the class, and teaching methods for children
with MI.
1. The further study in the back of each chapter, did you record information
about each to help develop the book?
2. Regarding teaching strategies, which one do you believe is best
for each intelligence?
3. Regarding assessment, do you believe that presentation and method
of response will eliminate standard testing?
4. Do you believe that enough teachers and others are recognizing and
using the MI theory and your ideas in development of (IEPs)?
5. Which of the seven intelligence’s do you see most often and what
one do you believe is the most important in developing?
Submitted by Duane Belvoir
The book includes eye-opening material. My husband is an
artist (visual) and
my daughter has ADHD and is very musical. I chose the
book because I hoped
to learn more about their comprehension styles.
According to the text, there are seven general intelligences
that people
have. Some people have very stong capabilities in one
area, while most
people use a combination of two or more. The seven
intelligences discussed
are: Linguistic, logical-mathematical, spacial, body-kinestheic,
musical,
interpersonal and intrapersonal. Taking into account that
we all learn
differently, the book gives great examples of each and also
many, many
practical uses for the classroom that will help every child
excell.
1. Why do Autistic people often accell highly in only one of these areas?
2. How realistic is it to hope to set up a classroom environment
that is
conducive to learning for every child involved, yet still be
economical?
3. What percentage of current teachers would you estimate
are actually aware
of these intelligences? How many actually incorporate
the knowledge into
their everyday teaching?
4. Have other countries that excell in education had an
understanding of
these seven intelligences for years?
5. When using the different intelligences for classroom
management and
getting attention, would you suggest alternating tactics throughout
the year
or experimenting at first to see what works best and then stick
with it?
This book dealt primarily with the ways in which an individual
could
interact and stimulate a child with Multiple Intelligences while
in the
classroom. It focused on both the identification and exploration
of a
child's MI. This book also gave many helpful suggestions about
how not
only to determine and test a student to determine if they had
MI, but also
how to gear the classroom setting as to attempt to stimulate
all of the
children's MI. I chose this material because I believe often
in classrooms
students who have a certain type of MI are excluded from achieving
their
full potential. As a teacher, I firmly believe that every student
has some
sort of intelligence, irregardless of what kind of grades they
get. Also
as a teacher, I feel it is our responsibility to foster and
guide those
children, as to give them every opportunity to fully develop
their
respective MI. I thought this book was extremely useful in giving
suggestions as to stimulate all areas of MI. One section I thought
particularly interesting was the talk of having a school geared
totally
toward MI. I agreed with the author in that I don't believe
this would be
some sort of "Utopian" school, only one where labels such as
"gifted" or
"learning disabled" did not exist.
Submitted by Lisa Rowe
Some of the questions I had were as follows:
1. Many of the activities in this book seemed to be geared towards
elementary level students, my question was whether these techniques
would
be applicable for secondary students, or will other ways of
teaching and
recognizing have to be used?
2. My next question is really an extension of the first. Is MI
still
applicable by the time a student reaches the secondary level.
That is to
say, can a MI be recognized that late in their learning careers.
Or,
because they haven't been fully stimulated in their area of
MI, will that
hurt them in the sense that they will be extremely hard to teach.
3. One question that really interested me was the effects on
students who
had either ADD or ADHD. There was some mention of this in the
book, and I
believe that Armstrong commented that when using MI with ADD
students,
they attempted to focus on the positive rather than the negative.
I was
curious to the numbers as to whether the students who were so
called
"learning disabled" really experienced any significant gains
through this
way of teaching.
4. Although there has been some talk of adding some more areas
of
intelligences to the list, (such as cooking), is there seriously
any other
areas that could be opened up. Where do you draw the line, and
what is the
difference between MI and being naturally skilled in a certain
area of
one's life. Also, where do the lines come together? I think
I would group
cooking with Kinisthetics, but really they are similar and different
at
the same time.
5. Finally, how would you merge Multiculturalism and MI together?
I think
that this is a huge question that really cannot be answered
with a single
sentence. How do you exclude all of the cultural stereotypes,
such as
people of Asian descent being good in school? I think the best
answer to
this question is observation, exclude any kind of race, religion,
or
national heritage, and focus on the individual.
Submitted by Jayson Wullbrandt