Chapter Four: Teaching Students about MI Theory

I am so appreciative that Armstrong saw the importance of including an entire chapter on the education of MI to students; I was a little surprised while reading the previous chapter at just how little he included on the matter, as they are most likely going to be your best source when gathering data on their preferred intelligences. I will have to say that I thought some of the suggestions were impractical and rather time consuming, in addition many were quite amateur in nature and would not have been task appropriate for a high school classroom. I do commend the sheer number of suggestions and the creative nature of them all.

After reading this chapter I have to say that the tactic I am most convinced to use is not one listed in its pages, but rather one introduced to me in Dr. Grace Wards EDU 221 class. As a first day ice-breaker activity each student was giving a MI questionnaire, through answering scenario based questions and having intelligence specific answers to choose from, each student was tasked with determining their top two preferred intelligences. This not only acted as a vital source of information for the teacher but was enlightening to the student as well. This chapter helped express the richness of that activity and further cemented my plans to implement it into my own classroom. While I feel that I am most likely to use this method I as well think the question of what our preferred intelligence might be is a great question to re-examine halfway through the year. The factors of time and a new approach might reveal information that was not gathered the first time around.