This guide was prepared by Elaine Gallagher and includes seven parts that UNONEWS will be publishing once a week. Being at the present time Director of Academic Relations of Sistema UNO, Elaine shares with us her vast experience at the classroom and beyond.

VI. Gardener’s Multiple Intelligences        (meeting students’ learning modes)

 Which ones are your strengths?    How can you best meet your students’ needs and learning styles?

…..By using these kinds of activities.

Types of Intelligence

• Linguistic intelligence
• Logical-mathematical intelligence
• Spatial intelligence
• Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
• Musical intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence
• Naturalist

How should we use M.I.?

• We tend to teach using the ways that we learn.
• We can identify the intelligences of our learners and teach them how to develop different strategies.
• Vary activities to include different intelligences each day.
• Identify which ones you use in your planner so you can be more conscious of them.

Ideas and Activities

Using Knowledge about Multiple Intelligences to Enhance Your Class

To stimulate your students’ learning preference styles, use some of these activities. Remember, activities practiced in some areas, will strengthen others.

Verbal/Linguistic

• Keep a journal or a diary
• Write a poem
• Make a word web
• Read a book, a novel, a poem, or an essay
• Tell  story or a tall tale

Logical / Mathematical

• Brainstorm ideas
• Decipher codes
• Discover or invent patterns
• Make a graph
• Solve logic puzzles
• Make predictions
• Use spreadsheet software

Visual / Spatial

• Imagine or pretend, and then draw it
• Build or draw in 3-D
• Make puppets
• Practice drawing with perspective, shading, coloring
• Play with geometric shapes
• Make or read a map
• Drawing, clay work
• Putting together a puzzle
• Making a floor plan

Musical/ Rhythmic

• Use musical software
• Create a song, poem, or chant
• Learn an instrument to play
• Sing in a chorus
• Listen to music of different times and cultures
• Evaluate music that you like and don’t like, and why
• Singing, chanting, clapping to a song

Bodily / Kinesthetic

• Perform a play or a skit
• Act out a role
• Perform a dance
• Clapping to a beat
• Marching
• The game “Musical Chairs”
• Play sports
• Do science with experiments
• Put together a puzzle

Naturalist

• Go to a zoo, farm, aquarium, or forest
• Observe planets, stars, comets, space
• Visit environmental parks, the ocean , rivers, or lakes
• Watch nature videos
• Learn taxonomy system and names
• Plant flowers or a tree

Interpersonal

• Debate an issue
• Write a collaborative paper or report
• Mediate conflicts
• Plan an event
• Tutor a classmate
• Practice solving problems as a team
• Help others less fortunate than you

Intrapersonal

• Keep a “To Do “ list
• Prioritize items
• Observe your own mood changes
• Read silently
• Keep a private diary of your thoughts and ideas
• Write your autobiography
• Make your family tree
• Write an ethical code, rules of conduct
• Think about thinking
• Weigh alternatives

Try some of these ideas, teachers, and you will help to develop your students not only in English, but in multiple ways!