Reflection+on+Understanding+and+Working+with+Multiple+Intelligences

UNDERSTANDING AND WORKING WITH MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES I attended a session called “Understanding and Working with Multiple Intelligences” in Yüce College Conference. That session tries to give a briefing of multiple intelligences theory and allow teachers to reflect their own understanding of multiple intelligences and how different preferences for learning should be taken into consideration by teachers.

The presenter was Meghan Beler who is a full-time teacher trainer for Oxford University Press and gives seminars and presentations on a variety of topics from young learners to adults. She was considerably impressive and well-prepared for the seminar. The topic was quite interesting and I liked the way she presented. She tried to explain multiple intelligences, to give general overview and tried to explain teachers’ understanding of multiple intelligences.

As we know from Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory, each learner has different ability and different understanding way. As teachers, we should take those differences take into consideration. She gave us information by supporting Gardner’s theory and showed us how to apply that theory in real classrooms. After giving information, she continued the session as if it was a workshop and began to make us do activities. The first activity was “4 songs, 4 questions” including musical, interpersonal and linguistic intelligences. She made us listen to a song and asked some questions. The second activity was “My Secret Picture”. She paired us up and one of the students in pair turned back while the other one is forward. Then, she showed a picture and wants the one turning back to ask yes/no questions about picture and according to answers the turning back was supposed to draw the picture. After applying this process, she showed the picture all students and they become aware of what they did. That activity addresses spatial, kinesthetic, linguistic, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences.

The third activity was “Word Clouds” which I found considerably beneficial. With the help of some websites, she prepared a page including most frequently words in a text and the words were separated and were given on screen varying in size according to frequency. The presenter wanted us to draw a tree with branches and wanted us to discuss what this story may be about. After discussion, she showed us a picture of the text and wanted us to guess what this story may be about. That activity included spatial, verbal and intrapersonal intelligences.

I liked the activities very much and I enjoyed while doing those. I learnt how I can apply multiple intelligences to real contexts with the help of that session. I believe that this method can be applied to all learner profiles and it will be considerably beneficial for students. Prompting intelligences more than one not only makes the lesson interesting and attractive and also enable students to learn by entertaining and to participate to the lesson voluntarily. I will try to use those activities in my lessons in future and I will try to find another methods or activities how I can integrate multiple intelligences with different activities.

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