Using Multiple Intelligence Surveys to Really Get to Know Your Students

As the new year unfolds and thousands of students enter the classrooms, teachers everywhere wonder how they will once again motivate every student to fully benefit from the lessons teachers have prepared for them.  With the common core, engagement will be crucial in building literacy and the academic success which accompanies such student involvement.  
 

One of the most successful approaches I have had with my students is helping students discover their many talents through taking a simple multiple intelligence assessment.  Not only does this knowledge assist teachers in developing more engaging lessons based on student interests and talents, but also builds student self-esteem as s/he discovers that s/he does have incredible talents.

Take a few minutes to view Gardner as he explains the many benefits for educators in knowing this information on their students.  Further, with this knowledge of personal gifts and strengths, students can tap these skills to interact with each other, complete class projects using these skills, etc.

Teachers may wish to see where their strengths lie as well.  The link which follows will allow teachers to see what their intelligences are.  Find your own learning style with this quick test.  It only takes a couple of minutes to complete and may shed some insights on personal teaching styles.  If a teacher finds that most lessons are based on having students listen, the teacher favors auditory deliveries.  However, not many students are auditory so such information should give teachers reason to pause and possibly begin to include other learning style deliveries so that all students can benefit from the instruction.

How do students discover their many talents?  Use the multiple intelligences survey for students.  I use it every year and enjoy seeing  my students see that they do have amazing talents which I will keep in mind in lesson planning:)

Have a great school year and enjoy Labor Day!

Denise

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How Can Assessment Be Addressed Fairly in Today's Diverse Classroom?

With common core will come a new look at assessments.  The traditional bubble sheets may still play a part in creating grades, but it will have a smaller influence.  This is crucial when talking about ELLs (and other struggling students) who will not have the academic English proficiency that their English speaking classmates possess.  How can they demonstrate to a teacher's satisfaction that they DO understand the key concepts covered in the lesson?  If teachers take creative, out-of-the-box approaches to designing effective, targeted, content vs. language dependent assessments, they will receive a more accurate picture of how well their ELLs and others understood the lesson. 

ASSESSMENT  Teachers need to do regular checks-for-understanding often throughout a lesson.  This approach allows a teacher to see who understands the concepts and how well as well as who is struggling in the lesson and where.  For ELLs, it will often times be language issue--the language of the text as well as the English language needed to share their understanding of concepts with their peers in academic discourse.  If teachers can identify strugglers before homework or independent assignments are doled out, they will be able to supply crucial mini-lessons to those who need them the most while the others continue on with the final assignment.

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES ARE SUPPORTED BY ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENTS Multiple intelligences should be welcomed as an important instructional tool to develop assessments or assignments which tap the gift or those gifts that all students possess including the ELLs.  Remember that ELLs are students or kids first and students second.  Not all students learn the same way.  Not all show their understanding in the same way. When teachers weave multiple intelligences into the mixture, they have the potential to set up each student to be successful with the assignment.  This approach boosts student confidence and that leads to good grades and good grades open the door to career choices.  (For more on multiple intelligences, search within this blog for earlier postings on it).

Denise

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Multiple Intelligences--Discover How Your Students Learn Best (Great for ELLs Especially)

With the start of the school year fast approaching, teachers are looking at tweaking their instructional approaches to accommodate the ELLs who will be entering their mainstream classes.  Many teachers will try their best to develop language and content delivery strategies to meet this need on their own.  This may work for many, but it can truly be an overwhelming process considering the fact that only a small fraction of the students in the class may be ELLs.  So the question becomes how they can meet the unique needs of the ELLs without shortchanging the other students.  Also, how can they deliver quality core content instruction to the ELLs whose English proficiency skills are often intermediate (at best) or lower?

Is there a magic formula to make this happen?  No, but how about looking at the ELLs first as individuals each with unique ways to process information?  Then, with that information in hand, build class activities around that given intelligence?  In such a setting, the ELL would be in groups with other students (EOs and ELLs) who share the same talent.  Here would be an avenue for the ELL to acquire language and access content knowledge since the material would be presented in a format that would mesh with her/his learning style.

How do you start on this road?  Try having students take an assessment to see what their learning styles are.  In fact, why not take it with them so students can see what your learning style(s) is (are)?  Students will be impressed with your honesty about what the assessment reveals about you and how you best learn.  When I took the test with mine, they saw that I did miserably in music (which was no surprise to me), but excelled in visual and interpersonal.  The other learning styles did not come close to my top two.   The class results even motivated the generally disinterested ones because it revealed to them that they were good in something.  Of course, this activity screamed GRAPH of classroom talents which I laminated and kept up as inspiration for them but also to serve as a reminder for me to design my assessments using this data.  It was really worth the effort since it motivated those few who had given up on school in general (high school).


ASSESSMENTS AND ACTIVITIES FOR MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES With this link, you will find several assessments on preferred learning styles based on results of multiple intelligences assessments.  This is only one assessment type, but there are many more free ones out there on the internet.  This site also provides the teacher with the language to use in giving directions to each of the groups.  So if you are a visual teacher, you would need to find new language for the other groups such as "listen to me", "try this", etc.  Why not make a copy of that to keep in your lesson planning book as a constant reminder on the need to deliver instruction that every student will follow?  Another idea is to structure your cooperative learning groups with the same learning types together.  Another time, mix the learning types.  ELLs would therefore fit in easily and therefore be more open to learning.  Language would become side benefit:)  Some classes even have learning centers where each learning center processes the key points of the lesson in ways that suit their common learning style.  There are so many possibilities so feel free to experiment!

LEARNING STYLES

Here is a video that goes into more detail on learning styles and how they support full student engagement.  Small accommodations are all that are needed.  Common core will naturally support this since the goal is for all students to succeed in ways that work best for them.  You will empower all of your students to want to succeed.  You will build self-confidence.  You will see your students believe in themselves. 

Denise


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Use This Multiple Intelligences Survey to Show Students Where Their Strengths Lie:)

Here is tool that will delight students of all ages because it shows them where their learning styles lie.  For many students who struggle with school, a tool like this reveals talents that they may not have known that they possessed.  With such new knowledge for both the student and teacher, learning takes on new dimensions.

Teachers will know how best to support instruction for that student.   This may entail offering options geared to the student's strengths to tackle lesson projects.  When I give projects, I try to make sure that I have at least 6 different types of activities with each one geared to one type of intelligence.  The transformation of student attitude is remarkable since now they feel that they will be able to successfully convey to peers and the teacher how will they grasp a concept.  ELLs are actively engaged when they find out there will be several options beyond "write a paper" to prove their mastery of the lesson content.  Of course, this does not mean that there is no writing involved, but rather the writing will fit the type of assignment they elected to complete.

For lesson delivery, teachers might use this knowledge to address key concepts through the types of intelligences present in class.  This would be an all inclusive approach since every intelligence would be involved in the delivery of the lesson.  It is a way of validating all the ways students process information. 

Last, teachers may want to take the survey.  It might show them why they tend to deliver lessons a certain way:)  Though I am a reader and writer, I continually try to see topics from the perspectives of my students (I can not do anything musical, but I have students who can and they have that option to convey a point if they like).

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES SURVEY