Multiple Intelligences Awareness Workshop for International School Batam (ISB)

Adj. Prof. Dr. Alvin Chan

Copyright 2005 Dr. Alvin Chan

What is Multiple Intelligences?

Howard Gardner, PhD is the founding father of the Multiple Intelligences. Professor Gardner's proposed his theory of Multiple Intelligences in his 1983 book, Frames of Mind.

Multiple Intelligences has helped to improve the classroom learning effectiveness and has benefited students around the world. Professor Gardner developed new ways of looking at the narrow view of intelligences and suggests that all people possess at least eight different intelligences that operate in varying degrees depending upon each individual.

The MI Wheel

The Intelligences Explained

Linguistic-verbal intelligence People with high verbal/linguistic intelligence love expressing themselves through words. They are more sensitive to the sounds, meanings and rhythms of words and love learning new words and foreign language.

The Intelligences Explained

Logical-mathematical intelligence People with high logical/mathematical intelligence can recognize relationships, connections, and patterns more easily than people with less logical intelligence. They will usually prefer to test out solutions rather than to be told or shown what the right answer is.

The Intelligences Explained

Spatial-visual intelligence People with high spatial-visual intelligence are able process information best using pictures, visuals, and imagery. They are likely to have a high level of attention to detail and appreciate beautiful scenery, fashion and art.

The Intelligences Explained

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence People with high kinesthetic intelligence process information through their bodiesthrough muscle, sensation, and movement. They enjoy the outdoor life and love to play games and sports that require them to move around.

The Intelligences Explained

Musical intelligence People with high musical intelligence learn best through sound, rhythm, and music. They are able to express yourself by singing, writing a song or playing an instrument. Even if they are not trained in any musical instruments, they just love humming and tapping your fingers whenever you listen to music.

The Intelligences Explained

Interpersonal intelligence (with others) People with high interpersonal intelligence process information through relatedness to others. They know how to communicate well with people and friendship is important to them. They also try their best to make someone feel comfortable in a class gathering or party.

The Intelligences Explained

Intrapersonal intelligence (knowing yourself) People with high intrapersonal intelligence have a strong sense of themselves, their wants, and needs. They are likely to set goals to plan and achieve in their life. They tend to be a little shy when meeting people and may prefer to keep quiet.

The Intelligences Explained

Naturalist intelligence People with high naturalistic intelligence are very good at recognizing and classifying patterns, information and objects. They tend to enjoy Nature and love looking at plants and animals. In addition, they are concerned about environmental issues and are friendly to animals and love having pets.

Benefits of the Multiple Intelligences Assessment

1. Knowing My Intelligences By using the assessment for your students (for Primary Level and above), you can discover their preferred types of intelligences. All of us are unique and we possess the abilities to do well in our life. The philosophy of Multiple Intelligences is to broaden the perspective of what is commonly know as Intelligence, which usually consisted of just measuring an individuals intelligence through a language and/or mathematics test.

The Benefits of Using Multiple Intelligences Assessment

2. Enhancing Effectiveness in Learning & Teaching Teachers can infuse the varied types of multiple intelligences strategies when developing their lesson plans. A teacher can create a more holistic setting to enhance the success of each student by varying the learning environment, types of lessons/activities and homework in class, according to the different intelligences described in MI.

More importantly, this will inject variety and fun in your students learning process. In addition, it has been shown that students tend to learn more effectively and enjoy their MI-based lessons in class.

Applying MI in the Classroom

Pointers for Applying MI Strategies in the Classroom: Be patient. It will take some time before you can be comfortable trying to infuse the different types of intelligences in all your lessons. Take it a step at a time. You have to realize that applying Multiple Intelligences Strategies will serve to liberate you rather than be an obstacle in injecting fun and true learning in your classroom. You do not have to incorporate all the EIGHT intelligences in ALL your lessons. At times, it is not possible to do so and it will tire you out (and your students) if you try to do so all the time.

Applying MI in the Classroom

There is also a danger of cutting the man to fit the coat when one tries too hard to infuse all the intelligences in developing a MI-based lesson plan, just for the sake of doing so. Use COMMON SENSE and apply MI strategies when you think it will help in your students holistic learning. It will be advisable to rotate and apply the eight intelligences in your weekly lesson plans. This would allow you to concentrate on just one or two intelligences (for example, naturalistic and linguistic intelligences) within a single lesson plan. This will enable you to develop MI-based lessons that are not too overwhelming and allow true learning to take place for your students.

THE MI-BASED LESSON PLAN & CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

The key difference and more importantly, its key factor for enhanced teaching and learning effectiveness, is the conscious effort of infusing the different types of intelligences in our lesson plans. By doing so, it helps to inject variety, interest and tap into the students Multiple Intelligences during the lessons. A good MI-based lesson plan should also be easy to follow with clearly stated learning objectives.

How should one go about in developing an MI-based lesson plan?

Before we dive into the MI-based lesson template, it is good to go through a thinking process involved in the lesson plan development. For starters, you are given a list of trigger questions to help you in relating the students Multiple Intelligences when developing your lesson plans.

NOTICE
Most of the activities under a specific intelligence that are listed may be used for the other intelligences too.
For example, if you sing a nursery rhyme, you will be using your linguistic and as well as your musical intelligence.

Trigger Questions and Possible Activities/Projects (Preschool Primary Level)

Linguistic-verbal intelligence How can I include reading, writing and speaking?

Activities may include: Learning about Phonics Nursery rhymes Reading a Storybook in class Labeling objects in the class with the associated words The Opposites Game: Get student to tell you the opposite of the words that you give them. For example, when you say FAT, they will shout THIN. Give them homework like Filling-in-the-Blanks for simple spelling Help the students to describe their favorite picture of photograph

Logical-mathematical intelligence
How can I include numbers, classification, critical-thinking and calculations? Activities may include:
Counting Game: Get students to guess and count number of a particular object in the class/school Sorting and categorizing objects Pattern recognition Pick-the-Odd-one-Out game Weighing objects in the classroom Develop flash cards of numbers, the four operations and etc

Spatial-visual intelligence
How can I include visuals, colors, art, graph and pictures? Activities may include:
Get students to do a collage by cutting and pasting newspaper cuttings. Doing potato prints Create a mini-treasure hunt for your students with a simple map of the class/ school as a guide. Get students to draw pictures according to your verbal instructions. For example, draw 5 ducks, paint 4 ducks in blue color and more.

Physical intelligence How can I include movement, exercise, drama and crafts? Activities may include: Make up a dance that represents what I have learned Write and perform a short skit Play a charades in class that is related to the class topic. For example, some students pretend to be animals and let the rest to guess what they are. Challenge students to write and perform plays. Have students build models or use other hands-on techniques to show what they learned.

Musical intelligence How can I include music, sounds, rhythms and dance?

Activities may include: Develop a musical piece to explain it to the class Challenge students to identify and explain patterns in music or poetry. Ask students to write new lyrics to familiar melodies or to compose a new song. Rap a song based on a topic Make a cheer for their team Create a jingle out of the topic they need to memorize

Interpersonal intelligence
How can I include group work, peer sharing and discussions? Activities may include: Engage in a debate or discussion with another student and then write down the main points Encourage student to brainstorm for ideas in a group Think-Pair-Share Jigsaw Cooperative grouping

Intrapersonal intelligence How can I include private learning time and student choice? Activities may include: Ask students to identify their own academic strengths and weaknesses. Have students think of personal goals and give progress reports. To give Worksheet that allow students to work independently Get students time to reflect on what they have learnt during the end of the day

Naturalist intelligence How I can include activities that are related to Nature and to encourage discussion with environmental issues? Activities may include: Ask students to keep environmental journals and to share their observations Invite students to lead classmates on a nature walk to point out interesting plants and animals they found during independent study Ask students to label parts of a plant, flower and more Encourage students to categorize the things they are learning for better clarity

Naturalistic:

Linguisticverbal

Intrapersonal

Logicalmathematical

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Interpersonal

Spatial-visual

Musical

Physical

Naturalistic To count the number of petals in different flowers

Linguistic-verbal

Intrapersonal

Logicalmathematical MAIN LEARNING TOPIC

LEARNING OBJECTIVE Counting numbers from 1-10

Interpersonal

Spatial-visual Flash picture cards: How many lambs are there in the picture?

Physical Get students to stand in a circle and count off 1 to 10. Call up a number and the student will run towards you

Musical Get students to count the number of beats in a rhythm

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES LESSON PLAN Teacher: Subject:

Date:
Unit Title: Time Frame: Learning Objectives:

Level:

Materials:

Procedure of Class Activities & its Related Intelligence Focus:

Steps

Process of Class Activities

Time Allotted

Intelligence Focus

1.

2.

3.

4.

Assigned Student Work (List homework/seatwork assignment to be given to students to ensure they have mastered the skill without teacher guidance):
No. Assigned Student Work Intelligences Focus Remarks

1.

2.