MI+Chapter+11+Block+1


 * 1) Click on edit this page.
 * 2) Use the down arrow on your keyboard to get the cursor underneath the horizontal bar.
 * 3) Type your name, highlight your name and then select Heading 3 at the top.
 * 4) Copy and paste your reflection underneath your name.
 * 5) Insert a horizontal bar under your reflection.
 * 6) Click save

Ethan Guthrie Herrell
Multiple Intelligences: Chapter 11

This chapter is about how Gardiner’s theory complicates the idea of Special Education. If we adopt the level of customization and individualization that Gardiner says we should, than the field of Special Education is no longer distinctive for its level of customization. Indeed, it seems merely be at the far end of a spectrum of customization from the model of the way schools were usually run in this country. Of course, given that Gardiner’s whole plan is abandon that model such that even verbal and logical intelligence-based learners have customized learning, so even picturing it as a spectrum is questionable. Gardiner further insists that we must focus on what students can do and work from there. You can’t built positives on top of negatives, or something on top of nothing. In the school that enacted Gardiner’s vision, students with disabilities were not marked as a separate category in any way.

For students with disabilities in certain or all the eight intelligences that go beyond what is common for others their age, certain technologies have been made or adapted to suit those needs. For example, audio recording, originally intended just for general communication, has been of great help to those reading disabilities or those that have difficulty standing up and speaking in front of groups. Calculators are helpful to those that can, in thought, understand mathematical principles but have problems with mundane calculations. This way, they can show they understand the steps and reasoning of math without getting bogged down with minor calculation errors. toc

Alex Randall
MI Chapter 11

This chapter focuses on the Multiple Intelligence Theory and its uses in Special Education. Luckily enough for educators, the Multiple Intelligence Theory is easily applicable to people with special needs. "By focusing on a wide spectrum of abilities, MI theory places 'disabilities' in a broader context. Using MI theory as a backdrop, educators can begin to perceive children with special needs as whole persons possessing strengths in many intelligence areas" (page 149). Even within this first paragraph or two, I find myself thinking about how I am not a Special Education Major for no reason. It made me think about how I know that I could never be qualified to handle someone with a severe disability because I would either have no patience for them or I simply would not know what to do. But reading about Multiple Intelligence Theory being applied to students with special needs is kind of uplifting because it shows the world (particularly the world of educators) that students with special needs really are just students (which the reason we use person-first nomenclature in the first place). The chapter also goes on to discuss using the Multiple Intelligence Theory to create useful individualized education programs. When I was a kid, teachers just blamed my behavioral issues on ADHD, not thinking that the fact that I was bored might have been the problem. If more teachers used the Multiple Intelligence Theory to teach, there would be a lot more satisfied teachers, parents, and students around. = =

= =

Sam Leal
Chapter 11: MI Theory and Special Education

Reading Chapter 11 in MI gives us a whole new way of looking at Special Education. Armstrong discusses within this chapter how addressing multiple intelligences with students in Special Education can help their learning. Through MI theory, it provides opportunities for special needs students to be whole learners and have strengths in ways that they learn. Focusing more attention on the strengths of students will give students with difficulties in the classroom much more confidence and ability to learn.

The chapter talks about being an “MI strength detective.” This means to find out what their strengths are and to continue to teach to them. Often bypassing teaching to an intelligence that might be weak for a student will help them learn by taking an alternative path. They are learning the same material; just being taught it through a different multiple intelligence. To me this is wicked cool and so true how you can teach and so many ways and if you find what’s best for a student they can really take off and run with it. Also MI theory can work itself in really well with development of an IEP (individualized educational program). By deciding upon what a student’s strengths are this is the information teachers need that can help them create an appropriate intervention. The end of the chapter lists many things that can be beneficial for special needs students and their learning in the classroom.

Cidney
This chapter focuses on integrating MI theory into special education practices, with particular emphasis on identifying and using students’ strengths to teach them. Instead of the deficit paradigm that is commonly seen that focuses on targeting students’ deficiencies, MI theory provides opportunity for a growth paradigm that recognizes students disabilities or difficulties, but at the same time acknowledges those students as healthy and “neurodiverse” (150). With the use of MI theory, there may be less referrals to special education classes, greater emphasis on student strengths, and even a changed role for the special education teacher.

I agree with the need to focus on students‘ strengths and the approach of using those strengths in order to target student deficiencies or disabilities. Using MI to develop an IEP for a student is a great idea, because it takes the student’s strengths into account. I also agree with integrating more special-needs students into the regular classroom, and not labeling them as special education students. By using this theory in the classroom, students should have greater self-confidence and feel more comfortable in the classroom.

Jordan Hale
When considering students will special needs, it is important to have the MI theory as your backdrop. Including the MI theory with special education students, the benefits speak for themselves. If we include the MI theory in special education there will be fewer referrals to special education classes. The MI theory will produce a changing role for the special education teachers. A greater emphasis on identifying strengths rather than weaknesses will also increase the self-esteem of the student. Finally, the MI theory will increase understanding and appreciation for the students. As you can see, integrating the MI theory with special education will help everyone involved in a positive manner.

The //duh// moment I had in this chapter was when I read the title of the chapter. Considering the MI theory with special education was something that completely makes sense to me but I probably would not have thought of connecting the two without this book. Using all intelligences is a great way for children in the special education classification to express what they have learned. The fact that educators today are still looking at the negatives first with any student let alone students with special needs is crazy to me. Always looking at the negative teaches the students too always look to the negative. Thinking positive helps people learn. Negative thoughts bring negative emotions and lack of motivation. It is important for teachers to be positive to all students to help them learn.

Karina Sprague
This chapter focused on multiple intelligences within students with disabilities. I think that some teachers commonly overlook the fact that students with disabilities have multiple intelligences, too. Teachers are so masked by the special needs of the student. I think a lot of teachers probably address students with disabilities as their own intelligence. This is one of my biggest fears, especially when I first start teaching. Although I have a lot of experience teaching students with disabilities, I never thought about multiple intelligences while teaching them, mostly because I had not learned about them yet.

However, now that I think about the meanings of multiple intelligences, and I look back on my teaching experiences, I subconsciously adjusted my teaching styles to suit my students. For example, one student had a hearing disability, so he learned better by doing things, and seeing me demonstrate things. Another student had a hard time moving certain body parts, but he loved to talk, so we taught him by talking and explaining.

I really like table 11.2 in this chapter (page 152), because it gave examples of well known people who became very successful despite their disabilities. I think this table will be useful in my future classroom because I will be able to use these peoples as examples for my students if the subject of special education ever arises. Additionally, this table really shows people to look past the disability and to look at the person. It is also a great reminder that although someone may have a disability, they are still a unique learner with a unique intelligence.

Colby Hill
MI Chapter 11 This chapter hooked me right off the bat: “Over the history of the special education movement in the United States, educators have had a disturbing tendency to work from a deficit paradigm—focusing on what students //can’t// do—in an attempt to help students succeed in school” (149). As class has suggested, this is not the way to go. I would suggest ideas, but the rest of this chapter supplies them. I think of real life experiences with my brother and wish these occurrences had happened earlier with him. The elementary school was too busy trying to diagnose him with things he didn’t have, but all he really needed was a teacher to treat him like everything else. Middle school was his changing point. Each student’s deficit involves an MI. This should be kept in mind. The growth paradigm model on page 151 explains pretty well what happened with my brother, and great things have happened since. Avoiding labels, materials/strategies good for //all// kids, and I believe authentic assessment approaches were taken as well. He had a portfolio for a while. It’s interesting to look at famous people who bypass their impairments and see how impairments really aren’t the worst thing in the world. I like the braille example: severely dyslexic people found it to work wonders. Page 154 explains it quite well when Armstrong writes “it shows how a difficulty in one intelligence can often be successfully overcome by rerouting a task through a more highly developed intelligence.”

Elizabeth Sargent
It strikes me as odd but unsurprising that teachers often think in paradigms about students with special needs. It may be that because I know a lot about special education and students with special needs that this makes me see these teachers as immature and unknowledgeable. That some teachers would think of children with special needs as only half or so of a human being is plainly stupid. As future teachers, we must recognize that ALL children have needs. Using the multiple intelligence theory it is easier for some teachers to recognize that students with special needs are just like everyone else, except most of them are more eager to learn and prove themselves to those that don’t believe in them.

It stands for itself that multiple intelligences would be a good way for all sorts of teachers to reach out and be able to give students with special needs the knowledge they crave as well as helping other students with varying needs. It is true that some students with special needs have some highly developed intelligences where they lack others all together, but it is also true that some special needs students have almost no developed intelligences at all. Reaching out to student interest, what grabs them is a most important part when reaching out to students with special needs. Because MI works so well with ALL students it goes to show what can be done without the need of special education classrooms. Students may not need to be in them, they may just need some extra guidance. MI introduction into the classroom will give students a better understanding of their peers with special needs.

Emily Haskell
Chapter 11: MI Theory and Special Education

This was a very interesting to me because my younger brother has dyslexia and has had an IEP for as long as I can remember. For a very long time he was not invited to the meeting and they were even scheduled for when he was meant to be in class so that it was nearly impossible for him to attend. However, none of that bothered me. What really bothered me was the fact that none of the teachers made an effort to teach him an effective way. They had their fifties style of teaching and they refused to change. Instead of teaching to his strong intelligences they taught mainly to his linguistic intelligence, the one he had the most trouble with.

One of the things that I thought was a great idea in this was to teach kids about the disabilities they have by perhaps talking briefly about some of the famous people who had the same disabilities but thrived nonetheless. In this way you can peak interest for students. You might talk about a historical figure or listen to a song and then talk about a famous musician. You can find ways to incorporate the multiple intelligences and address disabilities at the same time. = =

= =

Spencer Hodge
Chapter 11 of Multiple Intelligences talks about MI theory in Special Education. Special Education students are ones who learn well from teachers who incorporate the MI model into their classroom. It would be hard for me to otherwise enable these students to learn social studies if I were to just teach in traditional methods, but by incorporating the MI model in my classroom, I will be able to allow these students success in learning social studies. Something interesting that I read about was the section talking about IEP meetings. It was shocking to find out that these programs, which are meant to help students, are actually not even focusing on their strongest intelligences and instead are concentrating on their weaker intelligences. This is definitely a form of hypocrisy where a program that’s supposed to help is instead hindering a student’s ability to learn. I want to be able to attend some IEP meetings during my teaching career so that I could do something about it should I notice something similar to this effect taking place.