Week 9- Multiple Intelligences

This week's discussions and reading materials brought to our attention to the "multiple intelligences" and the various elements that enhance each type of intelligence. The key ingredient to this revise of the Gardener's Theory was the use of technology to increase our students academic performance and results. Personally, I always try to adopt and implement various activities appropriate for the intelligence of my students, although till now they were not very high-tech.

Keeping in mind the variety of students “minds” and the fact that each of them had different learning abilities, I asked my students to do the test to find out what kind of learner they were http://www.nedprod.com/Niall_stuff/intelligence_test.html. Faced with different types of learners I came to the conclusion that the Blog and Wiki page and the internet emails are not enough. After that I discovered that in my class I had:

1. Verbal-Linguistic.

Students learn best through language including speaking, writing, reading and listening. The technology advised should be focused on the creation of stories, reading comprehension, comments, poems, letters, articles, interviews, presentations, chats, debating.

2. Visual-Spatial.

Students can learn easier visually and tend to organize their thinking spatially. People like visual elements. We can use technology to work with comics, art, design, puzzles, animation, illustrations, graphs, presentations, paint programs, photoshop, charts, and video conferencing. For this group of learners I created an Interactive PowerPoint and as this was their first IPP they were surprised.

3. Musical-Rhythmic.

Students learn best by means of songs, sounds, rhythms. They like and compose music. Technology can be used for playing musical instruments, to produce video clips, animations, DVDs and CDs audios. I posted on my wiki some interesting links where the students can listen to their favorite songs and practice English.

4. Intrapersonal.

These students learn best through metacognictive practices such as getting in touch with their feelings and self motivation. Technology can be used in concept maps, internet research, blogs, multimedia portfolios, video projects, diaries, journals, etc. Thus to help the students I created a Webquest http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=100445  which in reality had little to do with the course. This webquest has little to with the course subject and it was done as pedagogical exercise for my students.

5. Interpersonal.

Students learn best through interaction with other people, through discussions, cooperative work or social activities. Technology tools could be used with this group, such as: blogs (some of them have already created their blogs), e mail projects, forums, discussions, group presentations, social networks, virtual worlds, games.

Gardner's Theory is useful in several aspects. It helps the teachers to know who are their learners, their talents, their kind of mind and provide them appropriate activities and exercises. This is theory is also helpful for the students because it can orient them for their future careers based in their type of intelligence. And we all know how important is to find the right type of profession....

Marsi