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.