FIAE Chapter 14

This chapter was not any better than chapter 13. I feel that these report cards would simply confuse students and parents when they received them. If I were using a differentiated curriculum with a student, I would sit down before hand and discuss with the student and the parents what the report card grade would be reflecting. I feel this would eliminate the need for special report cards because the student and parents would understand what the grade meant.

FIAE Chapter 13

The ways that this chapter says to manage your grade book seem a little ridiculous to me. The only one that made any sense to me was the one that listed assignments by the date with color-coding. I feel like this would be the most effective way for me to keep my book. The other ways don’t make any sense at all. They all feel like they would take more work than their value at the end. Reading about it, let alone keeping my grade book that way, confused me.

Chapter 12

I cannot imagine making a rubric for every single assignment that I give my students. No matter how many times I make a rubric, it is going to be time consuming and pointless for some tasks. I don’t even see how I can use a rubric to grade a math test. On a math test, a student can get an answer wrong or right, but there is nothing in between. I feel that a 100-point scale is better for math because I can give partial credit for steps that they get right. I do not think that a rubric can obtain this same effect.

FIAE Chapter 11

The whole dilemma with putting a zero in the grade book for not turning in an assignment is difficult to decide on. I see why a zero should not be put in; it drastically drops a student’s grade. However, I do not completely agree with giving a student who doesn’t do any part of the assignment a 60. What if a student completes the project, but doesn’t do well, like they earn a 60? I don’t think it is fair that a student who does nothing on the project gets the same grade. It’s not fair to the student who actually did the work. However, I do not want to put a zero in the book because mathematically it is awful. I just don’t know what the best way to do this is.

Team 2- Chapter 7 MI

Abstract

How a classroom is arranged can aid or hinder the many different learners that are in there. Chapter seven of the Multiple Intelligences talks about one of the simplest ways to organize a class in order reach all of your students with the different intelligences; activity centers. Armstrong talks about the four different activity centers that a teacher could implement in his or her classroom; the permanent open-ended activity center, the temporary open-ended activity center, the permanent topic-specific activity center, and the temporary topic-specific activity center. The permanent open-ended center is a center that is in the classroom all year long, like a reading nook or art area. The temporary open-ended center is something resembling the permanent open-ended center but can be taken down and setup quickly. Games involving the multiple intelligences are the best ways to accomplish this activity. The most practical of the four centers is the temporary topic-specific centers. These centers change frequently as the unit or lessons change. These centers tend to be activities dealing with the eight intelligences that focus on a certain topic. The final center is the permanent topic-specific center. These centers are typically used in a classroom setting where there is a yearlong theme and the activities can change with the different lessons pertaining to the theme.

Synthesis

This chapter presented some ideas that most of us have never even thought of. The idea of the classroom arrangement had never occurred to many of us as an important aspect to teaching effectively. The activity centers were mentioned seem like excellent ways to use the environment of a class to encourage learning. Coming up with centers for a lesson could be difficult, but coming up with these centers is as easy as searching on the Internet for starter ideas.

FIAE Chapter 10

I am slightly confused about how to grade work that students redo. Wormeli says that averaging two test scores or giving back half credit for every question is not right. Students should be able to receive full credit for everything that they redo. I feel two totally different emotions with this; the teacher emotion and the student emotion. As a student who studied and received an A the first time I took a test, I feel as though students who get to redo a test and receive full credit is a little wrong. I don’t get anything for getting an A the first time, but those who didn’t get to catch up. However, as a teacher I want all my students to learn and do the best that they can do. How can I make sure my students get to learn the information for mastery, but still not slight those students who do well the first time?

FIAE Chapter 9

After reading this chapter, I realize I am not ready to grade in a differentiated classroom. Out of the ten approaches to avoid, I was either thinking about using them or I had never even thought about them. There were a couple in particular that stood out to me. The first was avoiding bonus points and extra credit. I agree with the last half of this sentence, however, I have always thought bonus points on tests and/or quizzes were like presents. I was never planning on using pointless or irrelevant bonus questions, but the idea of giving a couple of deeper thinking problems that they can attempt to solve for some extra points was an idea I had. I do agree that extra credit is not needed. I feel this instills the idea into students that they can slack off on an assignment and then get extra credit to make up the difference. The other approach that stood out to me was “avoid recording zeros for work not done.” Again I can see both sides to this. Sometimes there is a very reasonable and acceptable reason to not get an assignment done, but what should be done if a student just refuses to do that work? I feel as though something has to be done so that the students who do complete the work don’t feel as though they did it for no reason.

FIAE Chapter 8

I have always thought that attendance and classroom participation were a part of every class and every student’s grade. After reading this chapter I am torn. I believe that students should have to come to class and participate in the activities that are being done in that class period. However, I see that they are not the best aspects to grade students on, but how do you get kids to take them seriously if there is no grade for them? I understand that participation and attendance do not show a student’s mastery of a topic or information, but by what I have been reading, not many things show this mastery. I think I still want to include attendance and participation as some sort of point value in my future classroom, but I just won’t count it as a huge part.

FIAE Chapter 7

All of these chapters about grading irritate me slightly. I mean if giving an A, B, C, etc. is so bad why are we using that system? The part that irritates me the most is that no “good” grading system is mentioned. They all say that grading is subjective and that is not right. I can see where they are coming from that grading shouldn’t focus on the other aspects, like participation or how well a student writes, but I feel grades are necessary. I know almost every student in my high school based how well he or she knew the material on what grade he or she received. Students, parents, and teachers alike have been using grades to express knowledge. If that’s not the best way to covey this information, what is?

MI Chapter 12

This chapter was mainly about the how students and people in general use the eight intelligences in their everyday cognitive behaviors. People use the multiple intelligences to memorize topics and to problem solve. I also found this idea fascinating. I never realized that I tend to lean towards the linguistic way of memorizing ideas by writing them out over and over again or repeatedly reading them. However, some other people learn better through songs or rhymes. I hope that as a teacher I will be able to come up with techniques for all of my students so that they will be able to memorize better. I just am not sure that I will be able to find these techniques for all eight of the intelligences.

MI Chapter 11

In this chapter, Armstrong discusses how learning disabilities can occur in all eight of the intelligences. I found it really interesting that if teachers taught more lessons to incorporate all of the multiple intelligences than fewer students would be referred to special education classes. I agree one hundred percent with this. Some of my peers had special education classes for only certain aspects of their lessons even though they knew the material. One person I thought of in particular when I was reading this chapter was a girl who was smart enough to do all the work; she just had a hard time reading. The school stuck her in special education for her reading disability, but if the teachers had taken a spatial approach with her, she would have learned easily. She was an artist and learned well with pictures. If teachers had known that she learned best that way, she would have been with all of her friends one hundred percent of the time in school.

UbD DI Chapter 8

This whole chapter is about the most effective way to grade in a differentiated classroom. Tomlinson and McTighe talk about how there is no absolutely perfect way to grade in a differentiated setting because it is difficult to grade on knowledge. According to this chapter grades should be solely based on a student’s knowledge of the material and not on the extra factors. I can agree and disagree with this statement. Students should be graded on what they know and not how well they can complete a project. On the other hand, how does one grade what a student knows without some sort of evaluation? I do not understand how to grade my students the best for everyone.

MI Chapter 8

Classroom management is an important part of a teacher’s day. This chapter focuses on how to maintain a classroom and get the cooperation from all of your students. As we have read in previous chapters, every student has a more dominant of the eight intelligences. These students all learn in unique ways and learning classroom rules is not any different. I would have never guessed to introduce the class rules in all of those varieties. All of the ideas could be done on the first day of class as an introduction. I can see myself writing the rules out on for my class and having them come up with pictures, numbers, songs, animals, and gestures for each of the rules. This would get all of my students involved and it would help the students learn the rules because they are being taught in with the eight intelligences.

MI CHapter 14

Armstrong dedicates his last chapter to the eight and a half intelligence: the existential intelligence. I personally do not believe this should be completely used in a classroom. I know it is important to look into all the aspects that are in incorporated into this intelligence, but I think it would disrupt a classroom by using it. When my teachers used to talk about abortion and other current controversies, my classmates would go off on tirades to defend their point and the class would get completely out of hand. If the point in this intelligence is to have students think deeply about the world it should be dedicated to a separate class and not the typical classroom. This keeps those students, like myself, who do not care for debating out of that situation, but still allows those students who want to discuss those topics to have the opportunity to discuss them.

MI Chapter 13

This chapter is about everything that we talk about in Dr. Theresa’s class. Computers and technology are great ways to engage the eight different intelligences. The other part of the chapter that I enjoyed more was that of the career counseling. I would have never thought that showing jobs that involve the eight intelligences would actually be interesting to students. I wouldn’t have liked it, but maybe that is because I already knew what I wanted to be. I wish there were more ideas of how to incorporate all the different vocational opportunities into my classroom so I can encourage my students to find a job that they will love, because it deals with something they love.

MI Chapter 7

This chapter dealt mostly with the different types of activities stations a teacher could set up in their classroom for all eight of the intelligences. The activity station that I found the most interesting was the “Temporary Topic-Specific Activity Centers.” These seemed the most reasonable to implement in a classroom and the most fun from a student’s standpoint. The idea of taking a lesson and breaking it down into eight activities for the intelligences so that each student can learn through their best method seems perfect. The only issue is that every time a teacher does something like this, the students gravitate to the same station every time. I like the idea of making the students rotate through the stations. I do not think I would use this as an everyday activity, but instead as like a reward for the class. I would have loved to do different activities like the ones mentioned in the chapter. By making it a treat and not an everyday thing, students may actually appreciate the tasks that much more.

UbD DI Chapter 9

I feel as though I have already read this chapter before, just with a different choice of words. Chapter nine ties directly into the Multiple Intelligences book because it deals with teachers changing their typical teaching technique so they can accommodate more students’ needs. Using groups and different intelligences for teaching a lesson will help students learn and is the whole point in differentiation. The one aspect that this chapter mentioned that hasn’t been brought up in the other books as much is pre-assessment. Pre-assessments have been discussed, but I never could grasp the importance of them. After reading this chapter, I see all the valuable information that can be gained from something so simple as a pre-assessment. Pre-assessments would enable me to see which students do not meet the skill requirements that might be necessary for my lesson, even though I might have thought they already knew it.

MI Chapter 6

Chapter six was dedicated to some of the ways that teachers can integrate the eight intelligences into their classrooms. Armstrong provides five examples for all eight of the intelligences. Some of the ideas mentioned I feel like are too distracting or unrealistic to incorporate into a classroom. Supermemory music was one of these examples. I cannot imagine allowing the students in my high school to lie on the floor and listen to music while a teacher was teaching. No one would have grasped the ideas and the class would have been useless. Then the one that I found unrealistic was a nature walk. I cannot see a class of twenty teenagers going outside and behaving enough to teach a lesson to them while walking outside. However, some of the ideas would have surely helped me while I was in school and I can only hope that I will be able to use some of all these intelligences in my class.

MI Chapter 5

I was shocked to realize how many different ways a teacher can teach the same material, yet with each strategy educate students with diverse multiple intelligences. Even a teacher standing at the front of the room lecturing can incorporate the variety of intelligences into his or her instruction. I was also surprised to find strategies for incorporating the multiple intelligences into my lesson plans. The MI planning sheet on page forty-seven was amazing. I would have never guessed that so many classroom activities could be done with punctuations. However, I am worried that I have to do all of these activities for every topic and that seems over ambitious. How is any teacher supposed to integrate all of those ideas into his or her classroom and still cover the necessary material to meet district standards?

UbD DI Chapter 7

Chapter seven was mostly devoted to ways to get students to understand the “big ideas.” “A certain portion is visible about the surface of the water, but we cannot fully comprehend the iceberg without going below” (pg 110 Tomlinson and McTighe). Teaching is all about getting students to acquire a complete understanding of the topic that one is teaching. One of the most beneficial ways to accomplish this is to ask essential questions. With these inquiries, students themselves can try to discover the answer and learn more in the process. It also enables the learner to ask his or her own questions without feeling like he or she doesn’t understand. The issue I have with this technique is what questions to use for my class in order to capture their attention so that they want to learn and ask their own questions.

UbD DI Chapter 6

This chapter seemed a little bit hypocritical when it was talking about being prepared and then saying we, as teachers, need to also be flexible. I feel I will have a hard time teaching on the fly and coming up with something that will work for all of my students. Some of the planning strategies that were mentioned, however, seem very relevant to the classroom. The analogy to the sports was accurate. “It should never be the case that some students are consigned to sideline drills while others consistently play the game” (pg 85 Tomlinson and McTighe). Even though I was personally one of the students immediately put into the “game,” I wished that my teachers gave me some more “sideline drills” so that I succeed with a better understanding. I also see that as a teacher, I cannot simply focus on the drills if I want my students to be interested. I know I would not want to do layups all the time for basketball and never get to use that skill in a game.

MI Chapter 10

Chapter ten of the Multiple Intelligences deals with the assessments for those classrooms using the eight intelligences. It was said that in order to accurately assess the multiple intelligences a teacher must evaluate all the intelligences and not just the students’ logical and linguistic intelligences. This seems really difficult to accomplish. How can a teacher incorporate every learning style into an assessment? The ideas for giving student choices was interesting, especially the student sign-up sheet. It is nice to see that people believe that students should have some say in their assignments.

FIAE Chapter 6

This chapter was about how to make good test questions. However, some of the ideas mentioned seem to only make the test easier, like the order in which a teacher puts matching questions. I don’t see why it matters to put the sentences on the left and the words on the right. All it seems to me is that the student doesn’t have to think as hard. One of the ideas I loved in the chapter dealt with short quiz questions. The students write the answer done twice, once to pass in to the teacher and the other to keep for themselves so they can instantly know if they are correct of not. This seems like a perfect idea for math quizzes so they can know exactly which questions they got wrong so they can try to figure out what they did wrong.

FIAE Chapter 5

When I read the title of this chapter I was immediately turned off by the topic. My school tried something like a tiered assessment and it did not turn out correctly. I was always just given extra work as the more “advanced” student. However, this chapter changed my mind. I saw that if done correctly, tiered assessments could be helpful to every student. If a teacher uses the Bloom’s Taxonomy levels he or she can challenge a student without making the different work seem like extra assignments. The only suggestion that I thought was totally absurd was the student contracts. This seems like a way for teachers to just send a student off on his or her own and not necessarily teach them. I assume that it just depends on the teacher, but I do not think it would be beneficial to allow any student to use this technique.