Multiple Intelligences

The Multiple Intelligences theory was proposed by Doctor Gardner on his book :Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Itelligence that differentiaties itelligence into specific type of cognitive abilities with a very weak correlations between them.

According to Gardner there are 8 different abilities:

Logical-mathematical: This area has to do with logic, abstractions, reasoning and critical thinking.

Spatial: This area deals with spatial judgment and the ability to visualize with the mind's eye.

Linguistic: This area has to do with the facility with words and languages. This includes reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing words along with dates.

Bodily-kinesthetic: This area deals with the control of oe's bodily motions and capacity to handle objects skillfully. This includes a sense of timig, a clear sense of the goal of a physical action, along with the ability to train responses.

Musical: This area has to do with sesitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones and music.

Interpersonal: This area has to do with interaction with others. Individuals who have high interpersonal intelligence are characterized by their sesitivity to others' moods, feelings, temperaments and motivations, and their ability to cooperate in order to work as part of a group.

Intrapersonal: This area has to do with introspective and self-reflective capacities. This refers to having a deep understanding of the self: 

Naturalistic: This area has to do with nurturing and relating information to one's natural surroundings.

Consider the theory of multiple intelligences is very important for a teacher because the fact that a student is unable to resolve an activity does not have to mean that he hasn't acquired the knowledge, but it could be that the activity is not the most appropriate for his type of intelligence. For that reason it is very important for teachers to take into account all possible intelligence that can be in the classroom and have a variety of activities to cover all of them .

This is an example of a person multiple intelligence

Meeting individual needs with young learners

This entry it's about the article "Meeting individual needs with young learners" by Peter Westwood and Wendy Arnold. This article it's a summary of the issues raised in a online discussion forum organized by the IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) Young Learner's Special Interest Group.

In all the classrooms of the world we can find a common element: every learner has his own individual differences. As teachers we need to promote a learning environment that enables to use methods that allow learners to adress these differences in positive ways. In the article, we can found the most commonly strategies to adapt their approach to teaching.

Differentiated resource materials: allows us to take into account the different ways of learning of each student.

Whole-group activities (Hands on): This type of activities enable all children to participate successfully in a shared experience by allowing for a range of different outcomes. Activities often focused on practical work around a central theme to which all children contribute to the best of their individual interest, abilities and talents. 

Small-group activities: Can be used as a way to organize the classroom or as a way for the teacher to meet more closely the needs and concerns of the students. Also, teh article give us the example of a Portuguese teacher that use this system for all groups rotate through a variety of activities, but one of those was with guidance from the teacher.

Students and teachers interactions: The best way to meet the individual needs of each student is through the interaction between teacher and student. it's a good way to help those students who need individually  help during a lesson. But if we want this to be effective it is necessary that the teacher has a good knowledge of the characteristics and needs of their students.

Projects: Project works enable children to pursue their own interest, while applying basic skills at their own level of competence. In this picture we can see an example of a  water cycle project.  

Multiple intelligences (MI): Many teachers use the Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Model, that recognize children's unique abilities ans strengths, to help them to recognize and respond to individual differences.

Symbaloo.edu

Symbaloo it's a very good tool to compilate online resources and built our Personal Learning Environments (PLE).

Symbaloo could be a very useful tool for pupils because they can have all their resources together and at the same time, allows the teacher to have a control of them.

It's very easy to use and allows multiple choices from blogs to video conferences. Furthermore, give us the option to be private, public or only choose a group of people.

Personal Learning Environments

Personal Learning Environments (PLE) are systems that help learners to take control and manage of their own learning. 

This includes support for students to:

• Set their own learning goals
• Manage their learning, managing the content and processes
• Communicate with others in the learning process

Thus student could achieve their learning objectives.

A PLE may be composed of one or several subsystems: thus, it may be a desktop or be composed of one or more services web.

Important concepts in PLEs include the integration of the episodes of formal and informal learning in a unique experience, the use of social networks that can cross institutional boundaries and the use of network protocols  to connect a number of resources and systems within a personally-managed space.

Examples of PLE

Halloween

I found this website with a lot of activities for teach English ith holidays topics.

Halloween bring us the opportunity to learn new vocabulary and to learn from the different cultures we can found in our classes because Halloween is a foreign holiday very famouse, so if we can make students to understand that, they will see the other cultures of the class with a new view and see how one doesn't exclude the other.

http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/halloween.htm

WELCOME TO MY BLOG

My name is Anna and I'm studying to be a teacher. For over seven years I have been working with children, from tutoring to camp instructor. The last three years I have been working as an English teacher.

Before I studied political science, but I didn't like it and I decided to go with what I enjoyed most: children and English. So I decided to do the English specialization so in the future I could teach English or teach content in English.

This blog will discuss concepts studied in the course of Didàctica de l'anglès and possible activities that we can work with students from elementary school.

I hope that during this year I could learn a lot of new tools and resources, especially related with Internet because I'm not very good with new technologies, but I am aware that these are increasingly present in our day to day life and also they are very useful in teaching and learning process.