Submitted by John Wells (not verified) on January 29, 2008 - 13:59.
I have worked as both a middle school and high school teacher over the course of my short career as an educator. Currently, I am a tenth grade English Language Arts teacher. As I have developed in my field, I have fully embraced Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligence and have been lucky enough to incorporate his thoughts into my curriculum. When I reflect to my days as a young student going through the daily eight periods, I can remember few of the actual lessons that were taught to me; this is most likely due to the monotony of daily routines and worksheets that seemed to dominate my adolescent experience. However, not all of my lessons were forgotten.
Personally, it is my belief that students are often not able to incorporate the content of the days’ lesson unless it maintains a particular level of “connectivity” to their personal lives. Speaking through the lens of a high school educator, the concept of “self-absorption” seems to dominate the minds of the youth; while this may not be true for all, most students demonstrate many behaviors and attitudes that display quasi-selfishness that is all too typical of this age group; I admit to suffering from this fault as well when I was coming through my formative years. Due to this fact, lessons must be geared towards the personal interests and value systems that our students hold dear.
In order to reach students and make learning a meaningful experience, we must recognize that students “do learn from reading and hearing, but the strongest connections are often made through concrete experience. Which do you think would make the most lasting changes in the brain, reading about an experiment someone conducted or performing the experiment yourself?” (Wolfe, 2003, p. 4). By getting students out of their traditional roles of sitting quietly, taking notes, and filling out worksheets, we will inspire learning that will actually mean something to our students; though they may not remember the content of the days’ lesson ten years from now, they will remember the activities they engaged in.
I try to apply this concept to my classroom. Although I still value traditional classroom activities such as notes and worksheets, I intersperse the work with theatre arts, music, games, as well pop cultural links and references. By making the content of my lessons different from the norm, my students remember more information, perform new skills proficiently, and are engaged in a learning experience that may potentially stay with them for a lifetime.
Resources:
Wolfe, P. (2003, Fall). Brain-compatible learning: Fad or foundation? Retrieved May 24, 2007, from http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/fall03/brain.html
Multiple Intelligence Curriculum: Engaging Students in New Ways
Submitted by John Wells (not verified) on January 29, 2008 - 13:59.
I have worked as both a middle school and high school teacher over the course of my short career as an educator. Currently, I am a tenth grade English Language Arts teacher. As I have developed in my field, I have fully embraced Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligence and have been lucky enough to incorporate his thoughts into my curriculum. When I reflect to my days as a young student going through the daily eight periods, I can remember few of the actual lessons that were taught to me; this is most likely due to the monotony of daily routines and worksheets that seemed to dominate my adolescent experience. However, not all of my lessons were forgotten.
Personally, it is my belief that students are often not able to incorporate the content of the days’ lesson unless it maintains a particular level of “connectivity” to their personal lives. Speaking through the lens of a high school educator, the concept of “self-absorption” seems to dominate the minds of the youth; while this may not be true for all, most students demonstrate many behaviors and attitudes that display quasi-selfishness that is all too typical of this age group; I admit to suffering from this fault as well when I was coming through my formative years. Due to this fact, lessons must be geared towards the personal interests and value systems that our students hold dear.
In order to reach students and make learning a meaningful experience, we must recognize that students “do learn from reading and hearing, but the strongest connections are often made through concrete experience. Which do you think would make the most lasting changes in the brain, reading about an experiment someone conducted or performing the experiment yourself?” (Wolfe, 2003, p. 4). By getting students out of their traditional roles of sitting quietly, taking notes, and filling out worksheets, we will inspire learning that will actually mean something to our students; though they may not remember the content of the days’ lesson ten years from now, they will remember the activities they engaged in.
I try to apply this concept to my classroom. Although I still value traditional classroom activities such as notes and worksheets, I intersperse the work with theatre arts, music, games, as well pop cultural links and references. By making the content of my lessons different from the norm, my students remember more information, perform new skills proficiently, and are engaged in a learning experience that may potentially stay with them for a lifetime.
Resources:
Wolfe, P. (2003, Fall). Brain-compatible learning: Fad or foundation? Retrieved May 24, 2007, from http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/fall03/brain.html