MI+B2+Chapter+3

MI Chapter 3 Synthesis by Bri Douglass
Abstract: In chapter 3 of __Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom__ by Thomas Armstrong it discusses how to assess your students [|strongest intelligence]. In the beginning it gives an overview of all eight intelligences how each thinks, what they love and what they need. Although students may be developed in multiple of these intelligences one of them is usually enhanced, but as a teacher how do you know which one? This chapter answers this question. They give many suggestions that will help in assessing your student’s strongest intelligence. Observing your students when they are misbehaving and how they spend their free time are great indicators. By keeping a journal with these observations throughout the year, these thoughts will be organized. Another tactic is collecting documents, whether it be school work, photos of students displaying their multiple intelligences or audio and video files. Looking at school records is an insight to the student’s past what subjects he or she did well in, kindergarten reports and standardized test scores. Talking with other teachers is especially useful if a student only has a teacher for math or history, getting another teachers opinions is essential. Speaking with the student’s parents can be insightful because parents are the second best experts on a student’s intelligences, while the real experts are the students themselves. Ask them what they consider their most developed intelligence is or by teaching a lesson eight different ways you can record which activities which students respond to. By assessing your students multiple intelligences it gives you an insight into what techniques you need to use in teaching.

As a class of future teachers the readers had taken into consideration the difficulties in teaching with [|multiple intelligences] but in this chapter they all reported learning how to assess which ones students are most developed in. The majority of the reflections reported learning about the observation tools especially the idea of watching how students misbehave. Instead of solely reacting with discipline determine what you, as the teacher needs to change to become more engaging to the student. Overall the readers wrote about how they learned a specific technique, mostly the observing misbehavior piece, and how they would incorporate this into their own classroom.

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Kassaundra
Chapter 3: Describing Intelligences in Students This chapter explains that the best way to assess students’ intelligences is to spend time observing them. The author mentions that one of the best things to observe is the way students “misbehave” because this can tell you a lot about what way a student wants to learn. I will need to take this into consideration so I don’t get overall upset when one of my students is doing something that I think is acting out of misbehaving. I will need to step back and realize that the student may be trying to tell me something about the way I am teaching my lesson. Besides just passively observing students, teachers can collect documents, look at records, talk with other teachers, talk with parents, ask the students themselves and set up activities. I think since I only teach one subject looking at a students school records and talking to other teachers may be a good way for me to get more information about their intelligences. Also, since I want to be teaching high school students it may be a very good idea to just ask the students themselves because they will be old enough to understand themselves and they ways they learn.

Charli Sayward
This chapter focuses on which ways are best for observing students’ multiple intelligences. Interestingly enough, observing ways student misbehave is helpful for determining which ways students learn best. For example, if a student fidgets a lot during class, this could mean he or she is a kinesthetic learner. If a student is chatting instead of listening they may learn best in groups. I really liked how misbehavior can be turned into something positive. Instead of punishing a student, teachers should learn from the student’s behavior. Sometimes disciplining a student isn’t helpful towards their learning. If we took more time to understand why students behave the way they do we would be able to find better ways to teach them. This makes me want to become more observant in classrooms so I can be a more efficient teacher.

This chapter was all about identifying the different eight intelligences in your students. It went over multiple ways in which the strongest intelligence can be identified. Some examples of how this can be done are by just simply observing, especially during the down time. looking at past records, talking to the students, and talking to parents are all good ones as well. How this information will effect my classroom is that I now know how to look as well as what to look for when learning about how to teach my students. This chapter presents a lot of options of how to look.

Matt Towle
 Chapter 3 provided a number of different examples explaining how to identify student's learning styles. I have learned a few ways of gathering information on students that I had never thought of before, such as documenting student accomplishments and talking to parents during back-to-school night.  This will definitely impact my classroom because I will have to be able to adapt my lessons to what I have learned about the different intelligences, as well as what I can learn about each individual student. If I am able to do this, I will extend learning to more students than I would if I had ignored the fact that there were a wide variety of intelligences acting in my classroom.

**Jenn Baum**
Chapter 3: Describing Intelligences in Students In this chapter the author notes the importance in determining the strengths and weaknesses of the multiple intelligences of students. One thing that I learned about how to assess these intelligences is to observe students for not only positive behaviors in each of the areas, but also to watch for how they misbehave in class. The reason for this is because students often act out in the ways they best learn. Another way to observe the students would be to see what they do when given a choice and free time. In order to know what intelligences need to be most incorporated into the classroom, I will first need to determine the intelligences of the targeted audience; the students. Some of the ways that I may be able to assess that after reading this chapter would be to ask the students themselves, their parents, other teachers, and through basic observations.

Justin Stewart
Chapter three talked a lot about the different ways of discovering what the different learning styles of kids are in a classroom. Included in the chapter was a checklist for teachers to use as a guide to discovering how some, if not all, of your students learn. By finding out how a troublesome kid learns and applying a difference in your lesson plan to incorporate that student sounds like a very important step to solving a lot of problems in the classroom. Being able to take tabs on all of the students and their tendencies sounds like it will be very difficult. But if I can take just a few notes a week on a student, it can add up to be a very long list by the end of the year. By discovering the different learning styles in the classroom, my students will be adjusted to in each lesson. I will find ways to incorporate as many of the learning styles that prove to be visible in the students of each class.

Alyssa Wadsworth
Something from chapter three that I most likely will not forget is the main idea that when students “misbehave,” they are figuratively sending the teacher signals that the way in which they are misbehaving is the way they learn. For example, if a student’s fidgeting is distracting the class, it could mean that they need to be physical because they are kinesthetic learners. It can be difficult to involve that intelligence in an English class, but not impossible. This impacts me as a teacher because when my peers misbehaved, I thought they were simply looking for attention they did not receive from their parents. It will affect the way my students learn in my classroom because some students with specific intelligences are difficult to teach because they are difficult to incorporate into the lesson. The chapter said that simple observation is the best way to figure out a student’s strongest intelligence but looking at the student’s records—with permission from the school and the parents of the student—and keeping a diary are great ideas to gain information on what their favorite or best subjects are so the teacher can understand better the way that student thinks. Both points in this chapter will change the way I regard students in the classroom who misbehave, and hopefully as a result improve the way the student regards school.

Erin
The chart right at the beginning of the Chapter 3 Describing Intelligences in Students really helped by providing examples of what the students a specific intelligence will need to learn better. Most students have strengths in more than one intelligence so I should provide a variety of materials that can help them with the assignments. Further in the chapter, it is suggested that teachers keep a document near them to record what type of learner each of his or her students are. I found this to be a good idea, but I feel as though teachers would not follow through on this because they already have so much to do. Other helpful ways to find out which intelligence(s) the students possess is to talk to other teachers and to talk to the students' parents. Each way is showing that you are interested in that student's success in yours and other classes.

Darcie
This third chapter had to do with the multiple intelligences that you will come across in your classroom, and the ways in which you should go about figuring out the way they learn. The one thing that I learned out of this reading was that a good way to figure out how your student learns in the classroom is by seeing how they misbehave. I had never really thought of it that way, that those who talk out of turn at the ones who are verbal learners, and the ones who are always fidgeting are the ones who are the kinesthetic learners. When I am in the classroom I am going to use this little trick, and really observe what the students are doing, and how they are acting.

Megan Wallace
I learned that there are multiple resources in which I can learn about my students’ individual MI intelligences. Observing them myself is not the only way. I have many resources available to me, including my fellow teachers. I now intend on working even closer with my fellow teachers and providing the best experience to my students that I possibly can.

Linda McLaughlin
//Chapter Three: Describing Intelligences in Students// Throughout this chapter, the focus was on how to assess and discover the different intelligences that various students may possess. I learned that the best way for a teacher to assess a student’s multiple intelligences is to simply observe them. I learned to watch how a student misbehaves, because how they misbehave can be an indicator as to how they learn. This is going to impact my classroom because there may be students who are “misbehaving” but are really just trying to show me how they learn, and I am going to have to be aware of this and do my best to accommodate their learning style. This impacts me because I now know a variety of ways to learn about a student besides observation. These include looking at past school records, collect documentation of how they learn, talking with other teachers, as well as parents, and the students.

Kaitlyn Haase
Chapter 3: Describing Intelligences in Students

In chapter 3, I learned that the best way to assess students’ multiple intelligences is simply by observing them. Many students will show how they want to be taught through their misbehaviors. For example, a student that moves and fidgets a lot may be a bodily-kinesthetic learner. Another good observational technique is to see what students do in their free time. The checklist that is provided in the book would be a great way to record the multiple intelligences for each student. No matter which technique or option I choose to assess the multiple intelligences of my students, it should be done. Knowing that information will allow me to better connect with my students.

Lyzz Stevenson
Chapter 3: Usually students’ prominent intelligences begin to develop and show at an early age. It is helpful that this occurs as schools can start to devise curriculum so that learning can be maximized through their preferred intelligence. Everyone is intelligent in all eight areas just a couple are usually more prominent in learners. This will help teachers as they can plan accordingly. By the time students reach a higher level of learning their intelligences should be somewhat developed. I can use this to my advantage when in the classroom to target certain strengths and weaknesses of students.

Kelly Steinhagen
Chapter 3: Describing Intelligences in Students I had not considered how difficult it would be to determine the multiple intelligences among each of the students until this chapter explained ways to do so. Most of what is explained is how to interpret subtle hints that students give as to how they learn. The idea that observing how students misbehave in the class relates to how they learn was very intriguing also. I would not have thought to watch what particular students do in their free-time as an insight to who they are as a learner. Previously, I probably would have just taken these facts as personal interest but really they are incredibly helpful hints. The chapter goes on to list all the different ways to understand how a student learns, and they are all very helpful ideas that will be useful in my own future classroom.

Bri Douglass
Within this chapter it describes how to determine a student’s most highly developed intelligence. I learned one strategy for this was to observe how a student misbehaves. Depending on their actions in class can give key clues to a student’s more established intelligence such as talking out of turn (linguistic) and fidgeting (kinesthetic). I learned that these students might not be misbehaving at all but rather giving you clues and reacting to your teaching styles. This technique of learning about my students will be helpful in my future for obvious reasons. This is the quickest way of determining whether or not I, as a teacher, am using multiple intelligences in the classroom.

Ryan Pelletier
“Not a test”, what a great thing for students to here. I found the MI Checklist for students to be a great method to help determine your student’s intelligence level. I think the MI Checklist covers many personalities and intelligences your students might have. I also like that it is a checklist. It would make it easier for me to check something off, instead of writing out my whole thought at that initial moment. By not testing your students you can observe them during free time, being their true selves. I do not believe testing someone brings out true inner self or intelligences.

Olivia
In chapter 3 of MI, the idea of specific and multiple intelligence in the classroom and identifying it as an educator were discussed. I learned about how from an early age, children display ability or desire of a certain intelligence style. Some children have abilities in several intelligences, and as educators, we should be careful not to "pigeonhole" students into one intelligence category. To assess students in their learning, one of the best ways to know what kind of intelligences they identify with, is to observe them in their behavior in the classroom.

Their habits, sometimes misrepresented as "misbehaving," (i.e. the bodily-kinesthetic student will be fidgeting) are usually signs of how a student learns. Another way to get an idea of what kind of learners we deal with is by documenting the students behaviors. Some ways taught in chapter 3 were collecting documents, such as taking pictures of students displaying multiple intelligences. Looking at school records and seeing what comments were made about the student. There are usually comments written about the students activities in the classroom, and these may give indication of what intelligences the student might have.

Talking with other teachers about what they observed when they taught the same students can be a great window into multiple intelligences, which is especially important to me, because I will likely only have one class with my observed student. Another suggestion to finding out the intelligences of a student is by talking to the student's parents. Parents have seen a child work in all areas of intelligences, and know how the student responds to each.

When I become a teacher, I would like to provide a "choice time" where I can observe what activities the students pick (as described on page 34). Setting up special activities is a way I would like to reach my students. By presenting an activity with eight ways of completing it, by watching my students choose, I will get a stronger understanding of what I should be doing for them as their teacher. I want to be able to keep a journal of specific students (one or two students who are difficult to teach) behaviors and actions in my classroom.