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Chapter Abstract/Synthesis
Roger Belton For chapter reflections, most everyone in the class agreed on the basic foundation of the chapter. A few people, like Dan and Abby, found the information very helpful and got something out of it. They both learned more about how MI can manifest itself in everyone, students and teachers alike. Most people learned more about how they can apply the multiple intelligences theory to themselves in addition to their students, and it gave them an introspective view of their own teaching styles. The chapter seemed to influence a lot of people into taking a look at themselves, and how they can figure something out so they don’t force their style of learning down students’ throats. The chapter definitely had an effect on how everyone in the practicum block saw themselves as teachers. In a sense, this chapter broke the mold for some people in regard to being a teacher. Teachers are not inhuman beings whose sole purpose in life is to educate people. Teachers are human, the same as everyone else.

The second chapter of MI was mostly about the [|multiple intelligences] of the teacher, and how those [|effect the classroom environment and teaching style]. The author provided a variety of ways to expand the scope of an educator’s teaching style, such as peer assistance and student involvement. The author later went on to describe some things that might affect the development of intelligences, and also reiterated the three primary contributors to intellectual development. In the main portion of the chapter, where the author described how the eight intelligences affect the classroom, several good points were made to back up the MI theory. It is logically sound that an educator would prefer to teach the way they learned. It is human instinct not to fix something that is not broken, even if it only works for a few individuals. The MI theory attempts to defeat that instinct, and create a system that will work for most, if not all, individuals. After the portion of the chapter explaining the effects of multiple intelligences on teaching, the author went on to explain how to remedy these shortcomings. Peer help is an excellent way to strengthen intelligences, with the perspective of others allowing the teacher to see beyond their own styles. Involving students is a double positive, as it stands a good chance of engaging students who may not have been interested, and it allows the involved students to contribute at a higher level.

Lizz
One thing that jumped out to me in chapter two was that they made it okay to ask for help if one of your eight intelligences isn’t as developed as other people’s might be. It said to ask colleagues, ask the students, and use technology that’s available. For example, my logical-mathematical intelligence isn’t as well developed so I could ask one of the math teachers to come in and help or there might be a math program on the computer that I could use. Other aspects that either help or hinder the development of intelligence are biological endowment, personal life history, and cultural and historical background. I’m not sure if I completely agree that these aspects hinder because in chapter 1 Gardner said that intelligence can be developed but in chapter two, the book is saying that those three aspects can hinder development. I do agree however, on the other environmental influences that the book says can promote and suppress development, which are: 1) Access to resources or mentors 2) Historical-cultural factors 3) Geographic factors 4) Familiar factors 5) Situational factors. I agree that they can promote or hinder because for example with access to resources I came from a poor family so I couldn’t afford to play an instrument or travel sports until high school and by that time, I didn’t have any interest in playing an instrument anymore. Also with geographic factors, I had many friends from the city who just didn’t understand nature and being able to smell the fresh air or feel the sun on their skin because they were always surrounded by buildings so they barely had access to develop their naturalist intelligence. I think with this chapter I can see myself in the classroom trying to get an understanding on my student’s background so I can know if resources hindered them or if we can do anything to help develop their intelligence to the fullest. This chapter also made me wish I had the chance when I was younger to play an instrument or at least try to play it.

Katie Stubbs
This chapter is about knowing what my multiple intelligences are and using them to help me succeed as an educator. By understanding which multiple intelligence I do best in, I can adjust my lesson plans to accommodate the students who require different learning strategies. If help is needed in order to create a lesson plan that uses an intelligence that I do not succeed in, it is possible to ask my students what they would like to do or even use technology to help make the lesson plan one that is inventive and successful. There are many factors that also play a part in the development of intelligences such as experiences in someone’s life or where someone may live. Environmental influences such as where one grew up, the influence of parents, and helpful teachers can promote or suppress student’s development of intelligences. It is interesting to wonder who or what might have influenced me growing up to want to be a teacher. When I teach, I know that I am going to have to avoid the deactivators of intelligences so that my students will not shut down intelligence without knowing their true potential. I do not want to give my students a paralyzing experience to which they shut down and no longer use that intelligence which makes it not thrive and grow. I should be promoting many different types of intelligences in a positive manor so that no matter what my students will keep using those intelligences even if it is not their strongest one.

Caleb
Everybody has the ability to become stronger in any intelligence. The cool part about this is that all they need to do in order to get stronger is to get exposed by it and to come past the events that have effected those areas of their minds. If a student of mine had a family that decided to throw out all musical instruments because of a reason that we can’t comprehend then that child might be lacking the ability to come into his full and has had a paralyzing experience. Thus as a teacher in my class I might show the child a clip of music and thus their intelligence for music might grow stronger and thus blossom into something new. It’s a nature and nurture aspect of the human brain. Some people might have an aptitude for a subject or some sort of material but if someone or something gin their lives are holding them back then the ability is held back. Thus it’s my job as a teacher to go past these obstacles and introduce my students to a way to strengthen these multiple intelligences. Yes, I cannot do it by myself and I will need help since once cannot be a master of all eight intelligences at once. But, thankfully there will be a group of individuals who will be around to help me out and to show my students the ability to go past some of their obstacles. If not to show them how to get past then to strengthen those intelligence that have already been strengthened by life and the experiences that that student has developed.

Abby
I thought that this chapter was extremely interesting and it was the only one that I was able to read through relatively quickly. I have never thought about applying the concepts of the multiple intelligence ideas to myself as a teacher. Whenever I have taken these tests or thought about them I have either been thinking about myself as a student or about the possible students I might one day have. I have never taken the time to think about why I might gravitate toward specific tasks as a teacher. Now that it is brought to my attention I remember having teachers ask certain students to explain things in nature terms or having students display their own artwork on the board instead of drawing the diagrams themselves or challenging us to do the math in our head instead of doing it themselves. Now that I think about it these could be my teachers’ ways of offsetting their multiple intelligence deficiencies in certain areas. Also, the idea that the place and time period that you were born in can have a great impact on whom you become has always interested me. I have wondered what would have happened if I had continued on with ballet after twelve years and went to New York City instead of deciding to be a teacher or what would have happened if I had been born in a time period where women were expected to take a back seat and not have complex ideas of their own. The multiple intelligence theory and how it can be strengthened or weakened based on life factors really challenges me going into the teaching profession to be careful what I say and how I work with students and their personal skills.

Dan
Before reading this chapter, I thought that multiple intelligences were strictly based on biological standpoints. I never considered environmental or cultural impacts to affect the process of the different intelligences, as well as incidents that might push one to achieve more, or set them back. It is now clear why my linguistic and verbal intelligence is really developed. My mother always took me to the library everyday as a child, and I read constantly to the point I wanted a dictionary to learn more words. But more importantly, I see how this will affect me as a teacher and the students I communicate with. Everyone is brought up differently, everyone has a different socio-economics statuses, so everyone will have different developments of their intelligences, to which I must prepare for. I also must be ready for my own faults and struggles when I come across areas which I am not well suited. The advice this chapter provides to deal with those faults and struggles are very important for a teacher. You must be able to communicate with your colleagues and ask for help when needed, especially if you know they are more development in a certain intelligence than you. Not only does it help get the work done, but also allows you to grow and even help develop that intelligence.

Jenn
In this chapter of //Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom// I feel like I have a better understanding of how it pertains to me as an individual and a teacher. As the beginning of the chapter states, without applying the content to oneself it is unlikely to see the full depth of its uses when applying it to students. I feel like this is very true in my own personal goals as a teacher because after my first introduction to the theory I was already able to picture ways it would help me in the classroom. For example, I am well aware that I am not as well versed in kinesthetic intelligence as I am in linguistic. This could put my students with kinesthetic intelligence at a disadvantage if I do not learn how to use this as a teaching style. Because I agree with Gardner’s theory that everyone possesses some of each of the intelligences, I was then able to tap into my own past and find examples of where I potentially have kinesthetic intelligence. From there I reasoned how I would use similar techniques to teach. Not only did this help uncover my own intelligence, but it also helped me become a more conscious teacher to kinesthetic learners. Another aspect that I found new and important was how factors outside of the classroom can limit or extend an individual’s intelligence. When thinking of the factors, biological, personal and cultural, it seems unlikely that a teacher can do much to cultivate the intelligences of a student. However, as the book points out, part of the MI theory is that nurturing any intelligence can help anyone grow, because everyone has the potential. Finally the concept of crystallizing and paralyzing experiences helps me understand that in order to properly motivate students into intelligence development, it is important to understand the individual’s past experiences.

Roger
The second chapter of MI was mostly about the multiple intelligences of the teacher, and how those effect the classroom environment and teaching style. The author provided a variety of ways to expand the scope of an educator’s teaching style, such as peer assistance and student involvement. The author later went on to describe some things that might affect the development of intelligences, and also reiterated the three primary contributors to intellectual development. In the main portion of the chapter, where the author described how the eight intelligences affect the classroom, several good points were made to back up the MI theory. It is logically sound that an educator would prefer to teach the way they learned. It is human instinct not to fix something that is not broken, even if it only works for a few individuals. The MI theory attempts to defeat that instinct, and create a system that will work for most, if not all, individuals. After the portion of the chapter explaining the effects of multiple intelligences on teaching, the author went on to explain how to remedy these shortcomings. Peer help is an excellent way to strengthen intelligences, with the perspective of others allowing the teacher to see beyond their own styles. Involving students is a double positive, as it stands a good chance of engaging students who may not have been interested, and it allows the involved students to contribute at a higher level. The “crystalizing,” and “paralyzing,” memories are an excellent point for MI. Most everyone has had a bad or good experience with something, and these memories scar us, for good or bad. Providing new memories, perhaps even pushing some students (and teachers) beyond their comfort zone is a good thing.

Jasmine
Chapter 2 of //Multiple Intelligence// by Thomas Armstrong was focusing on how a teacher could go about trying to incorporate multiple intelligences in the classroom. An important relationship that teachers need to develop is between their colleagues. (21) All teachers have their expertise field of study. As a future math teacher, I may want to incorporate nature or music in my class in order to reach naturalists or musically inclined students, I could reach out to other teachers in my school who work in those fields. They could give me advice on what to do, or how they appeal to their students. Another way teachers could understand how students can learn is just to ask the students for ideas. They personally would know how they learn and what they would like to see in the classroom. (27) Students themselves know better than anyone else what works best for them. They may say they would like more moving around incorporated into the lesson to burn off some energy. It would be important to me as a teacher to get that feedback. Students often develop their intelligence often by what they are exposed to as small children by their parents. If a child is brought up in a very active sports enthused family, and is encouraged to play sports and be active, that child will probably grow up to be kinesthetic. (28) Knowing this information, it would be so helpful of parents if they could be more encouraging during younger years of their children’s lives in order to make them more rounded as far as how they think and how they learn. If more actions could take place like that, students would be more open to different types of learning. Since not all parents take advantage of those opportunities, it is up to teachers to make sure that all students get reached regardless of their learning styles or type of intelligence.

Alex
Chapter 2: As an interpersonal learner the first thing that really jumped out to me in this chapter is that if I struggle in a certain aspect of a students learning style or may it be distributing the information in a certain style I can call upon a colleague to help me with the areas that I am week. This not only allows the students to get the proper information in a form they understand but builds unity in a school in which I also strongly wish to enforce in a school system all the students can be friends so can all the teachers. The section on developing multiple intelligences is also something I wish to administer in my class room. As a history teacher or a teacher of the Social Sciences I can manipulate the three ways of developing multiple learning styles and also teach classes based on historical figures therefore it is a lesson in itself and also a way for students to broaden there horizon as a learner. You can establish the biological endowment, personal life history, and cultural and historical background all within a history class and still have them learn course material as well as enhance the capacity as learners. Allowing students multiple ways of learning allows them not only success in my class by success as a learner in general and guess what we are going to have fun learning I guarantee that. = =

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Jake
Alright, I am a bit more convinced. The analysis of the Nature and Nurture roles within the multiple Intelligence theory seemed to make a very clear line between what is learned and what is inherent. However, I still have difficulty with focusing a large amount of energy on a student’s musical ability when the likelihood that they could ever make a reasonable living with such a skill set is relatively slim. I do indeed see how environmental and cultural conditions graft ones intelligence; there is a clear link. My next question is then how do we accurately determine which students are gifted in which areas, and should we not try and established a base line of all skill sets within a given class. Who’s to say Mozart could not have been a phenomenal painter or athlete, and it was due to his push in the musical direction that such potential was neglected. I am still having a lot of difficulty determining an appropriate application aside from simply being aware that such intelligences may exist within our students. It still seems quite simple to say that everyone is different; that is obvious, but what do we do with that. The easy answer would be to say that we develop lesson plans around consideration but, quite bluntly, that still seems irrational and impossible. With one teacher in a classroom, it still seems that each student is going to get a little and none of them are going to get enough. I suppose I ought to just keep reading.

Ally
Chapter Two- I agree with the beginning of the chapter when Armstrong talked about how “the theory of multiple intelligence is an especially good model for looking at teaching strengths as well as for examining areas needing improvement” (21). I think that before we enforce the theory on our students we need to make sure we understand it as teachers because otherwise we won’t be helping the students. I learned that profiling your specific intelligence isn’t just taking a test and knowing the answer you really have to look within yourself in order to find how each intelligence matches you. I liked how Armstrong talked about working with colleagues and actually having student’s help where the teacher’s strengths aren’t strong. In my experiences in the classroom one definitely notices when a teacher doesn’t know about nature or music when they discuss it in class, I wouldn’t see any problem in getting help or allowing a student to show their strengths. This will enable the teacher to possibly learn something new from another teacher or a student, which they can then use in the future. I learned more about how certain intelligences are developed through the activators and deactivators I didn’t realize how much ones “home” life effects their intelligence. I always considered the deactivator would be self-effected where the student is too afraid to try or doesn’t want to try. As a teacher, it is important to know the environment you are teaching in order to help with these different deactivators by accommodating for the students there will be a better chance of success.

Chapter 2 gives the reader some advice on developing their intelligences and applying them as a teacher. The author points out that there is no standardized test to accurately determine a person's most developed or under-developed intelligence, but a person can assess their own strengths and weaknesses by paying attention to how they interact with problems and peers. The point of knowing which intelligences a person is most or least proficient in is not to get them to master each intelligence, but instead to learn how to use each one equally. Learning how to use each intelligence equally will both better the learning of the teacher and the quality of the teaching.

There are a few tactics that teachers can use in order to balance out their strengths and weaknesses. Asking other colleges who excel in a certain intelligence that the other lacks in is very helpful. If a teacher is not musically inclined, going to a music teacher could yield great results. Students are also a powerful resource, as they can offer a different point of view on a situation and different strategies. Also using the school available technology as a resource is a way to balance a teacher's intelligences. For example, borrowing calculators for those who are not mathematical or movies for those who are not picture-oriented.

A person is not necessarily weak in an intelligence, just under-developed. There are three factors that affect the development of multiple intelligence: biological endowment, personal life and history, and cultural and historical background. Biological endowment refers to genetic or hereditary factors and brain injury. Personal life refers to a person's experiences in developing an intelligence, whether good or bad. Lastly, cultural and historical background refers to the time, place, and the state of affairs when a person was born, such as the Renaissance Era or the Great Depression. = =

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Brittany
Ch 2: I liked the idea of first applying the MI theory, and all theories, to ourselves before using them on students. I think we can better understand how they work and what we can do with them comfortably if we experience them first hand. I agree with the fact that the MI model can help point out strengths and weaknesses of teachers, and I think it would good for all teachers to take the test to see what theirs are. I found the tips for the resources to be helpful, especially asking colleagues for assistance in their area of expertise. I had the idea that asking for help from colleagues would be almost taboo in schools, because I had thought there would be competition in schools among teachers. After reading this I thought about how almost every teacher is there to help students improve their lives and learn, not to compete for which teacher gets the best results. I especially liked the idea of asking students to help provide ideas for demonstrating their expertise. I think that through their help not only will they enjoy a subject more, but they will be more likely to succeed because they are in charge of how they are learning. It was also interesting to read the three factors in developing intelligences. I had not thought much about what could have happened had someone like Mozart been born in a different time or country, because something inside me wants to believe those who are that talented and intelligent would be able to excel anywhere. This was a new concept for me to think about who I could be had I been born somewhere else in another time with different parents. Finally I found the idea of crystallizing and paralyzing experiences to be something I could relate to and connect to why I love or hate a subject or activity.