Chapters Eight UbD; Eight, Eleven, Twelve MI

Chapters Eight UbD DI Eight Eleven Twelve MI

When grading students’ work, it is very important that we establish what we are grading on. Giving a student a grade without specifying what he/she received the points on is very ambiguous, and could enforce negative qualities on work. We should also keep in mind the important parts of what we are grading. Does it make sense to really penalize students for forgetting to put their names on papers? Perhaps if it is a reoccurring theme we might do something about it; however, that takes away from the important parts of the scoring. If we grade by telling students that there will only be a certain amount of As, Bs, Cs, etc… then we create an environment in which students who get the As are the winners, and students who get below that are the losers. Why not let every student have the ability to get an A? Isn’t that what we are ultimately aiming for?

When getting a classes’ attention, we can’t simply use the typical, “CLASS!” and expect them to obey. This is merely using the linguistic intelligence, and may not affect the students who learn best with the other seven. One paragraph talks about displaying a large digital countdown clock so students can see how much time they have until they leave the class. I do not agree with this strategy because students, especially the ones who do not enjoy the class, will be more engaged in the clock than they will in the lesson.

In our classrooms, we should not regard children with special needs solely in terms of deficit, disorder, and disease. Instead, we should work within the parameters of a growth paradigm. Learning disabilities do not, in fact, only deal with students who are special needs. For instance, a student who is lacking in the musical intelligence, like me, could have a learning disability in the musical intelligence. In examining the differences between the deficit program and the growth program, we should be learning much more in the direction of the growth program, as it is more beneficial in nearly every way. IEPs, which are also mentioned in both of the programs, are too often given to students and lack the most developed intelligences while focusing on the weaknesses. This does not do us any good. This does not provide a lot of assistance for the teachers, as one of the most important things to be able to do is relate to the student based on their intelligences.

“How students think has become almost more important than what they think.” I like this quote, because we need to make sense of the students’ cognitive skills. I often think that I have a poor memory when it comes to certain things; however, after reading this chapter it makes me feel better that I may be better at remembering things if the information was provided to me in one of my intelligences. Now I can understand why this would be so beneficial to do in the classroom to get students to memorize the material better. We want to make sure, however, that students are not simply memorizing, but learning by discovery and actually soaking the information in. This will really help students out as well as me when it comes to moving on to other lessons in a timely fashion.