MI in the classroom

While in class on Tuesday, we all took a quiz to see what our strengths were out of the Multiple intelligences. Although I had 70% or higher on each intelligence, there were two that were at 100%. The MI's that were at 100% were Kinesthetic (which I will focus more on) and Intrapersonal. The information below is a collection of my thoughts and ideas based off of my findings from the site (surfaquarium.com/mi/) Any quotes in this blog are directly from that website.

1. Some of the core characteristics of Kinesthetic learners are sensory, reflexive, tactile, concrete, coordinated, and task oriented. Out of these characteristics, I feel I most identify with sensory, internalizing information through bodily sensation, reflexive, responding quickly and intuitively to physical stimulus, and task oriented, which is strives to learn by doing. I feel these fit me well because I do react quickly and on instinct to things, and I love learning by exerience, or "doing." I like projects where I can learn to create a lesson plan, by actually creating one, for example.

The other MI that was very high for me was Intrapersonal. This MI's characteristics are Affective Awareness, Ethical Awareness, Self-Regulation, and Metacognition. I believe I can identify most with Affective Awareness, "the knowledge of one's feelings, attitudes and outlook" and Self-Regulation, "monitoring one's thoughts, actions and behavior" the most. I beleive these to be true because I tend to understand exactly how I feel about any particular thing, right away. I also like to hold myself accountable for my own thoughts and behavior and I am usually aware of them as well. I tend to learn a lot by thinking about something to myself for awhile.

2. For kinesthetic children, they like to interact with objects in their environment. They usually like to do activities that require being "hands-on." They may prefer learning centers and may also possess strong motor skills, are generally different than hyper children and enjoy games and tasks that require activity or groups.

3. Some of the ways I can incorporate Kinesthetic learning into my classroom is to make sure to plan activities in the classroom that can be hands-on, allowing the students to play with things to learn about them. Also, Kinesthetic learners can benefit from using different learning centers in the classroom. I could set up a reading center, a writing center, etc. to allow a specific part of the room to be associated with different subjects. I can try to incorporate song and dance, giving children the opportunity to get out of their seats and feel the learning, rather than only see it. Three dimensional objects for learning are also very helpful for kinesthetic learners, so they can see and feel the learning at the same time.

4. Some of the technologies that can be helpful to Kinesthetic learners are the mouse, a joystick, building tools, P.E. equipment, materials that can be manipulated, simulations and the wheel and axels.

5. I think it is very important, as a teacher, to be aware of the multiple intelligences. It can impact my classroom because if I have the knowledge of how different children learn, then I can form a years worth of material that can hit on every level of intelligence, allowing all the children the opportunity to succeed, as they will have different levels of different intelligences. As I find out what intelligences best help my students learn, I can tailor my lessons to help them have a higher chance at success.

Here is a copy of my MI profile: