Each week, an educator shares an Aha! moment in the classroom in Education World’s Voice of Experience column. This week, educator Brenda Dyck reflects on how she focuses the first two weeks of instruction on helping students become familiar with their learning strengths. Surveys and activities help students learn which intelligences they favor. These beginning-of-the-year activities will be revisited throughout the school year. Included: Links to multiple intelligences survey tools, more!
When you watch Michael Jordan perform unforgettable maneuvers on the basketball
court or listen to Celine Dion belt out one of her moving ballads, do
you ever wonder how they did in school? I do. I wonder if they ever failed
a math test or struggled to make sense of a Shakespearean sonnet. I wonder
if their peers looked up to them. I wonder if their teachers had any idea
of the world-class talents they would become.
I also wonder if I am too focused on meeting curriculum standards to
notice in my own classroom a budding George Lucas, Maya Angelou, or Bill
Gates. Would I recognize their talents if they showed up in ways other
than what education theorist Howard Gardner calls “schoolhouse giftedness,”
or the more traditional linguistic and logical thinking?
Celebrate Students’ Abilities!
In Little
Geniuses, psychologist Thomas Armstrong celebrates more
than three dozen “unconventional” talents that are worth developing
and celebrating in children. Those talents include:
* Adventuresomeness
* Common sense
* Compassion
* Inquiring mind
* Leadership abilities
* Manual dexterity
* Moral character
* Patience
* Persistence
* Self-discipline
* Sense of humor
* Social savvy
Those questions have led me to take a different approach during the
first weeks of school. Others might condemn my approach as a frivolous
use of precious class time, but I persist in putting aside the seemingly
pressing issues of curriculum for a while. Instead, my students concentrate
on creating their own learning profiles. The “learning profile” document
(more specifics about this later) identifies and celebrates the eight
intelligences identified by Howard Gardner. The function of the learning
profile is twofold: to give me a bird’s-eye view of the strengths and
weaknesses of my new students, and to provide my students with some self-knowledge
that will help them meet their learning potential.
Each year I am amazed at the wealth of unconventional information I
gain from this activity. I encounter students who appear to live dual
lives -- they struggle during school hours, but excel outside of school;
demonstrating remarkable abilities in tap dancing, computer programming,
hockey, or choral speech.
Knowing that students who are labeled “learning disabled” are often
very creative in other ways, better than average at visual-spatial tasks,
or talented in mechanical, musical, or athletic pursuits motivates me
to seek out alternative ways of delivering my curriculum. I am often able
to figure out approaches to my curriculum that will take advantage of
their many and varied strengths.
CREATING A LEARNER PROFILE
During the beginning days of school, I introduce two learning inventories
to my students:
Multiple Intelligences Survey. First, I have them complete the
Mutliple
Intelligences Inventory. This survey identifies which of the eight
intelligences -- math-logic, verbal-linguistic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic,
musical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and naturalistic -- have the strongest
influence on each student’s ability to learn. Although learners demonstrate
elements of each of the eight intelligences, the survey helps identify
several intelligences as dominant.
Searching for Voices
Care to reflect on a classroom experience that opened your
eyes? Click here to
learn more.
Learning-Style Preference Questionnaire. Are students orderly,
reserved, cautious, or good at on-the-spot problem solving? Do they thrive
when they can work with things that can be handled, taken apart, and put
together again, or do they prefer working with things that directly and
practically help people's lives? The Learning-Style
Preference Questionnaire sheds light on many less conventional characteristics
that contribute to an individual’s success in learning.
After administering those two inventories, I introduce activities to
help students internalize what they have learned about how
they learn. For example:
Students use data collected from the learning-style questionnaire
to create a learning styles pie chart.
Arrange students into eight groups. Assign a different intelligence
to each group. Students in each group research the assigned intelligence
and create a poster or mural to help explain it to their classmates.
Provide each student with a legal-size file folder. Have students
create on the cover of the folder a collage comprised of pictures from
magazines and other sources as well as their own art; each image should
represent something the student discovered about himself or herself
from the MI activities/questionnaires. We file those activities, students’
goal sheets, and examples of student work in the folders. All this work
can be used as a reference point during parent conferences.
Provide students with a drawing of a large head. Have students divide
the skull area into approximate areas represented by different intelligences.
Label each section and add pictures, illustrations, or key words to
represent each intelligence.
Challenge students to strategize ways in which they can stretch beyond
their natural talents and interests; have them use one of their “lowest”
multiple intelligences to complete a project.
During the balance of the school year, I remind myself from time to
time of the activities we did in the first two weeks of school. Letting
those learning profiles sit on a shelf was never my intent. The power
of those tools is only unleashed when their contents are pondered, referred
to, and applied to the curriculum throughout the year in the form of lessons.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Little
Geniuses Psychologist Thomas Armstrong reminds us that giftedness
comes in many forms.
Brenda Dyck teaches at Master’s
Academy and College in Calgary, Alberta (Canada). In addition to teaching
sixth grade math, Brenda works with her staff in the area of technology
integration. Her "Electronic Thread” column is a regular feature in the
National Middle School Association’s Journal, Middle Ground. Brenda is
a teacher-editor for Midlink
magazine
Each week, an educator shares an Aha! moment in the classroom in Education World’s Voice of Experience column. This week, educator Brenda Dyck reflects on how she focuses the first two weeks of instruction on helping students become familiar with their learning strengths. Surveys and activities help students learn which intelligences they favor. These beginning-of-the-year activities will be revisited throughout the school year. Included: Links to multiple intelligences survey tools, more!
