MI Chapters 7, 8, 13, and 14 Response

I felt that each of the chapters we read discussed ways to bring MI theory to life in the classroom with some methods being more practical than others.

I found the first part of chapter to 7 to be more helpful than the second part because it outlined general aspects of classroom design and how they affect/relate to MIs.  I do think that the activity centers are more conducive to and realistic for an elementary school classroom, mainly because teachers at the high school level teach a variety of different grades and classes a day, which means one classroom set up may work for one group of students but not another.  Since I will (most likely) be teaching just one subject, it may be plausible for me to set up my classroom in a way that best suits how MIs are used in the English classroom.  This might make my set up more universal for all my different grades and classes and still appeal to a variety of intelligences.  For example, I might have a quiet reading center with for students to work and read independently (intrapersonal, linguistic), another space across the classroom for students to collaborate (interpersonal), and another space where they move about freely (kinesthetic).  I would then incorporate other elements that appeal to the other MIs throughout the classroom, but maybe not in “activity centers.”

I really liked the different ideas for using MI theory in classroom management, but again, I found many of them to be better suited for elementary grades.  However, I thought this chapter provided good insight as to how rules and expectations can be conveyed through all the different intelligences, and this is something that I will attempt even in my high school classroom.  This chapter made me consider the possibility that the reason some students have behavioral issues could be because the rules are not conveyed in a way that is easily interpreted through their strongest intelligences.

I was glad that chapter 13 provided examples of how technology can be used as a tool for allowing students to work with and explore MIs.  Because I’m not great with technology myself, I’m looking for ways to incorporate it into my curriculum that are meaningful and not too complicated and this chapter provided ideas on how to do that while appealing to all MIs.

Lastly, I enjoyed reading about the possible “existential intelligence” because I think it is found in a lot of literature, so I can easily incorporate it into my curriculum!