Wednesday, September 18, 2013

MI Chapter Ten

MI Theory and Assessment

When assessing students based on all of their multiple intelligences, it is important to have them put their learning in context. Put them in a situation where they would be expected to show their learning in real life. As teachers, we need to be able to recognize where students’ intelligences are, and we can do that by observation. Observation may be one of the best ways to discern which students may be matched with which intelligences. Also, Gardner makes a good point about integrating student interviews, or how I would like to call it, student/teacher discussions, into the classroom. These would be one-on-one sessions where the teacher could meet with the student to discuss their strengths, weaknesses, progress, interests, goals, etc… This shows students that we are interested in helping them succeed. It is important, however, that we actually put these interviews to good use and blend the responses into the lessons. I like the idea of these meetings because it allows the students to have their own bit of autonomy from their parents regarding parent/teacher conferences.


On standardized tests (assuming we give them), I think it is important to give students the opportunity to choose how they might answer a specific question. Perhaps they can show their knowledge by writing, drawing, relating, analyzing, etc… As long as what they show us is clear, and that they can articulate their answer in some way, then I would deem it acceptable. Some students express their knowledge differently than others; a prime example being the eight multiple intelligences, and we need to be accepting of that.

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