Wednesday, July 22, 2009

My MI

I used a Multiple Intelligence checklist at the beginning of the year to profile my Prep students. The profile showed the predominant "smarts" of the students through a questionnaire. I was wanting to find out the strengths of the students (strong Nature, Maths and Music) and the "smarts" that needed to be encouraged (Word "smart").

My class also has three students with special needs. While the communication skills of the students are not strong, I was able to include them in the profile by asking their parents to complete the questionnaire.

I did find that the questionnaire needed updating - one of the questions asks if the student prefers to go camping or watch a video. The most common response to this was "what's a video?" How old did I feel?! (As Prensky has stated the accent of the digital immigrant can definitely be heard in this checklist)

The student profile has given me the means to find ways to engage the students, while working on ways to increase their other smarts.

However, I have now profiled myself using the link in moodle and I'm going to be brave and post my results for all to see.
I can see straight away that my "smarts" are different to my students. The challenge for me is to develop ways to include my lesser smarts as as entry points for my students, while using my strengths to encourage the use of other smarts in the classroom.

Through this course, and Learning Management 4, I am feeling encouraged that I will be able to develop and enhance instructional strategies to engage students and incorporate the new technologies into their learning experiences. Can't wait to learn more . . .

1 comment:

  1. Hi Jane,

    I found it really interesting and exciting to hear that you have actually used this test in action and that it has helped you reach your students. I also did the test and i think that it is a great idea for all teachers to do alongside with their students to show that everyone has strentghts and weaknesses in more than one area, and within those strengths and weaknesses we can work as a class to help each other. I think that this would be such a positive and before reading your blog i would have thought that these tests would be too out there for little ones but who says they are unless you have a go!

    Thanks Jane
    Alice

    ReplyDelete