MI+B2+Chapter+7


 * Abstract and Synthesis by Ryan Pelletier**

This chapter discusses the importance of your classroom’s environment. This does not just have to be the arrangement of your classroom. It also has to do with routines and organization. The best way to find out if your classroom has a good environment is to question the eight multiple intelligences. You need to conduct your classroom in a way to make all your students comfortable. You should not always use big words that you know some students may not understand. You should allow your students to move around and provide hands on activities. By doing certain things like these you will meet all your student’s [|intelligences]. You can also create special areas for different intelligences. For linguistic learners you can have a special area where you can sit other than your desk to read, so that they are more comfortable. We also learned about the four different types of activity centers. There is permanent open-ended, which is usually a yearlong center. The temporary open-ended activity center is an activity that can be set up and taken down easily. The temporary topic-specific activity center is when you have different centers that have the same theme, but cover something different about that theme. The permanent topic-specific activity center can be used to explain the change in the seasons. It is a yearlong center that has different components added every season.

Everyone in the class seemed to enjoy this chapter, because it provided new ideas and examples about improving your classroom’s [|environment]. I know that we all want our students to be comfortable and have a sense of what is going on, so I think this chapter had a positive impact on all of us. We also talked about how we can use routines to help improve the environment in our classrooms.

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Kassaundra
Chapter 7: MI Theory and the Classroom Environment This chapter discusses that not only is it critical to take the intelligences into consideration when planning curriculum but it is also important when planning how your classroom will be set up. By providing a long list of questions to ponder when considering classroom ecology, this chapter gives insights on how to incorporate the eight intelligences into the physical environment of the room. It is suggested that MI activity centers be integrated into the classroom. There are four different types of activity centers that can be set up, permanent open-ended, temporary open-ended, permanent topic specific and temporary topic specific. Incorporating these centers into my classroom may have an impact on how I can ultimately set up my classroom because I might be in a situation where I do not have a lot of space to work with. I will have to make sure that these centers are vital to my classroom before giving up another classroom set up I think would work better. Also, I feel that most of the examples provided would work well in a more elementary school setting and perhaps would not engage my middle or high school students. I think, though, if I were to incorporate MI activity centers I would use the temporary topic specific centers because they would give me a chance to take one important topic in my class and apply it to the eight intelligences.

Charli Sayward
Chapter 7: MI Theory and the Classroom Environment There are many more factors to the classroom environment than just the seating arrangement and how the teacher and students treat each other. These factors include consistency in classroom routines, the attractiveness of the classroom as well as the lighting, and how is the auditory environment. I know I am someone who needs routine, so this will definitely be consistency in my classroom. I also change my voice a lot while presenting, so I will be able to avoid boring my class. I never thought about how I will decorate my room, but this is something that I will look forward to doing. I want my classroom not only to be an inviting to my students, but I will want it to be comfortable for me as well. A couple other factors for the environment are whether there are any windows in the classroom and whether there are any plants or animals. I will definitely want to have plenty of windows in my classroom because I enjoy the natural lighting and I believe it can help students learn. I wouldn’t mind having an aquarium with fish or a turtle either. This could create an even better atmosphere for students who may be naturalists. After reading this chapter I have realized there is a lot more thought I need to give into how I will want to set up my classroom.

Darcie Simmons
In order for MI theory to work at its full capacity, the classroom environment needs to be able to reach each of those multiple intelligences. This chapter discusses the different ways to set up the classroom in order for the different intelligences to be comfortable. While I was reading this, it made me think of my combined three/four class. In this class we had many different places to go, if we wanted to work a certain way. After the lesson was taught, we had the option to work alone at our desks, to go to the listening table and talk about the lesson with the rest of our classmates. There were also areas where we could listen to music, and just relax and take in the information we had just learned. While I am in the classroom, I will be sure to provide a different kind of setting for the students to be able to receive the environment they need to learn best.

Jenn Baum
Chapter 7: MI Theory and the Classroom Environment In order to effectively include and incorporate each of the eight intelligences into learning, not only do you have to consider the curriculum and the lessons, but also the classroom environment itself. There are many questions that you can ask yourself in order to determine if your classroom setting is compatible with each of the intelligences. It is important to make sure that all of the intelligences are accounted for and that they are all given equal opportunity to contribute to the environment, welcoming strengths in all aspects. I once had a class where the walls were white and really bare, with the teacher lecturing the entire time without any dialogue with the students. Everything about the environment contributed to its lack of interest and made it incredibly boring and un-engaging. After reading this chapter, I realized how important it is to set up and create a welcoming environment that engages all of the students, their senses, and their intelligences. Some considerations about the environment would include how the room is set up, the colors, whether students are able to move around, having consistent schedules each day, having a healthy balance of sound and music, creating a safe environment, and allowing students to work in groups or alone. As a science teacher, it will also be easy to include plants and animals for the students to take care of and observe.

Linda McLaughlin
//Chapter Seven: MI Theory and the Classroom Environment// This chapter was cool in the fact that it talked primarily about setting up different activity centers in the classroom that would help students learn and explore in other intelligences besides their own. It also discussed different ways to help keep your classroom environment friendly and accessible for different styles of learners and learners with multiple intelligences. This impacted me because I’ve never personally experienced a classroom setting where there were centers of the room that were devoted to helping learn in different intelligences. This also impacted me because it helped me realize that there is a lot that a teacher can do to set up a classroom that promotes use of multiple intelligences. This will impact my classroom because this makes me think about the different things I can personally set up in my own classroom to help my students. My students will have many options to choose from that will suit how they personally would like to work. This chapter helps me apply MI theory to its full capacity in the classroom environment.

Kelly Steinhagen
Although I found that this chapter is geared more towards younger grades, I liked some of the basic ideas it introduced. For instance, the individual tables for each intelligence with different materials on them seems like it would be better or more effective in a middle school or elementary classroom, but the idea of having areas of the room that speak to a specific intelligence could be beneficial. This way, each student would have some aspect in the room that was comforting and inviting. Also, multiple intelligence activity centers in a high school classroom is not very feasible, but including options for using specific intelligences can be. I also really liked thinking about different ways that my classroom can be comfortable and different from traditional, rows of desk rooms. This chapter made me want to ensure that my classroom will be inviting to all students and that I move the room around a couple times in the year.

Brianna Douglass
This chapter talked more about how to incorporate multiple intelligences into the classroom. It talked about setting up activity centers in the classroom that are both temporary and long-term. They gave examples for the different centers in each intelligence such as for music you could create a music lab, performance center and listening lab. This idea of creating spaces in the classroom felt like it was targeting more of the elementary levels rather than middle or high school. But overall I think the gist of this example is to incorporate all intelligences. So in my classroom I can still have different areas depending on what students are working on. By doing projects in class students could choose to do them according to their multiple intelligence and work in a specific area of the classroom. The chapter provided good examples but I think it would be hard to incorporate some of these into a classroom that is only one subject.

Justin Stewart
Chapter seven introduced the activity center model for using MI in the classroom. This model is broken down into four quadrants that are split based on whether they are open ended or topic-specific and permanent and temporary. There were some really good ideas about ways that I can use MI in the classroom by setting up different stations and allowing students to either choose which station they wish to work in or place the students in the stations as I decide fits. The only problem that I have with this model is that I’m not sure that it will work out well for a high school chemistry class. Some of the stations did not sound like they would be applicable to the age group that I hope to teach. I guess I can always tweek the models so that they can fit the lessons I teach and the assessments I give out.

Erin
In Chapter 7: MI Theory and the Classroom Environment, there are many examples of how to incorporate the different intelligences into the atmosphere of the classroom. Not only does the room have to reflect parts of the intelligences, but the way students respond to questions needs to be taken into consideration. For example, for linguistic learners, the level of vocabulary needs to be varied. What really impacted me were the types of activities coordinate system with the quadrants. From these quadrants we get activities that are open-ended permanent, topic specific permanent, temporary open-ended, and temporary topic specific. In my classroom, I will try to incorporate the different intelligences into the activities. When I can, I will have students choose what type of activity they want to do and what intelligence they want to focus on.

Ryan Pelletier
This chapter talks about the classroom environment, which I feel is one of the most important things. The layout and arrangement of a classroom plays a big role on a child’s learning experience. I really want my students to be comfortable with their surroundings. The chapter has examples on how to make your room more comfortable. I also learned that your routines are incorporated into the classroom environment. If the students establish a routine, then they are less stressed on what their expectations are. I have never really been good establishing my own routine. But in the past year or so I have found that the challenges of life are so much easier to handle if I do have routines. I want my students to learn examples on how to develop a routine, so they can be more effective in life.

Matt Towle
This chapter in MI discussed many ways that the classroom environment can affect each of the intelligences. The most useful part of the chapter was the section where the authors listed out different ways the classroom could be arranged to aid each intelligence. These were listen in question form so they could easily be used to assess any classroom. As the authors say, it is difficult to implement all of these suggestions, however, a teacher who strives to utilize MI theory will find that they come naturally. This is how I hope to base the set up of my classroom. If my classroom can be set up in a way that will help every student learn better according to their specific learning styles then learning will come all the more naturally to them.

Megan Wallace
I learned just the way the classroom is set up can have a huge impact on how my students will learn. The chapter talked about having different centers in the classroom for the different intelligences. By having different centers this gives the students opportunities to learn in an environment that is most suited to them. I like the idea of having both temporary and permanent centers in the room. I would like to use that when I have my own classroom. This will help to give structure to the students that need it and at the same time give flexibility to those that like change.

Lyzz Stevenson
Chapter 7: The classroom environment is discussed and is very important in the learning experience of students. Setting and keeping a comfortable learning environment will help students fell less pressured and will up learning potential. It is also important to incorporate a different learning activity for each intelligence. This chapter introduces an activity center that has four major components. By using this activity center in the classroom will allow students to pick what activities to do an will help future their learning. If I were to use this model in my classroom I would have to make the activities appropriate to the age group and topic.

Alyssa Wadsworth
This chapter discussed multiple intelligences in relation to culture; all cultures use all eight intelligences. I also learned from this chapter that students need to be exposed to what types of jobs are related to specific intelligences. This affects me because I could literally relate my students’ work to the real world outside of the classroom into which they are thrown after graduation. This will help my students to understand the relevancy of their work to the world they live in every day.

Kaitlyn Haase
In chapter 7, the authors compiled lists of possible questions that could arise when thinking about a classroom environment. These questions were good prompts to get me thinking about my classroom’s environment in terms of each intelligence. I learned about activity centers and how they can truly enhance a classroom. The four different types of activity centers explained in the chapter are: permanent open-ended, temporary topic-specific, temporary open-ended, and permanent topic-specific. The open-ended centers should allow for student choice in their activities. The topic-specific centers should be more directed for the students.

Taylor Kemp
This chapter was about how you could make your classroom MI friendly. It gave some great examples of simple activities like having games out to constant ones like activity centers. The activity centers can either be permanent or temporary, both being a good feature though. By having these available and allowing students to use them it can 1 show you which is (are) their main intelligence(s) if they are left out as well as 2 allow them to get to know the others if required a task in each. The way that this will impact my classroom will be more from the temporary ones i fell. This chapter seemed more directed towards elementary but I'm sure could be put to use in higher grades.

Olivia Norris
There are many things that need to be taken into account when thinking about using the MI theory in the classroom. In this chapter, the importance of including multiple intelligences in the classroom affects many areas. If I want to use the idea of MI, I will need to consider the changes I will need to make in my curriculum, lesson plans and environment. When I become a teacher, I will make sure to accommodate my students' needs by weighing these different ideas.