Multiple Intelligent Theory

Multiple Intelligent Theory

Multiple Intelligent Theory, or MIT, was created by Howard Gardner from Harvard University.  Within this theory, Gardner has seven distinct intelligences that are part of the way students learn.  While there are different intelligences, everyone has a little of each (Grainger, 1999).   The purpose of this assignment is to explore Multiple Intelligent Theory and how it applies to a lesson plan that we design and teach.  The lesson plan that I created is based off the artist Wayne Thiebaud, whose work is great for teaching the elements and principles of art.  I reviewed a video from the NCU library’s site to critique.  

Lesson: Wayne Thiebaud

Created by Katie Law

Subject: Intro to Art

Grade level: 6-7

Duration: 3-4, 65-minute class periods

Standards:

·         Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

o   Enduring Understanding: Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed.

·         Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

o    Enduring Understanding: Artists and designers experiment with forms, structures, materials, concepts, media, and art-making approaches.

·         VA: Cr2.1.7a Demonstrate persistence in developing skills with various materials, methods, and approaches in creating works of art or design.

·         VA: Re.7.2.6a Analyze ways that visual components and cultural associations suggested by images influence ideas, emotions, and actions.

·         VA: Re.7.1.7a Explain how the method of display, the location, and the experience of an artwork influence how it is perceived and valued.

(State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education. 2015)

Objectives:

·         I can…

o   Create a work inspired by Wayne Thiebaud

o   Apply and create with oil pastels

o   Reflect and express about Wayne Thiebaud’s work

Materials

·         For Students

o   Paper 8 ½ by 11

o   Paper 11 by 15

o   Oil pastels

o   Pencil

o   Oil pastel value worksheet

·         For Teacher

o   All supplies for students

o   Example of work

o   PowerPoint of lesson

o   Oil pastel value worksheet, larger for demo

o   Knowledge about Wayne Thiebaud

Essential Questions:

·         What do you believe the artist is trying to say?

·         What conditions, attitudes, and behaviors support creativity and innovative thinking?

·         What factors prevent or encourage people to take creative risks?

·         How do artists work?

·         How do artists and designers determine whether a direction in their work is effective?

·         How do artists and designers learn from trial and error?

o   (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education. 2015).

Layout and Directions of Lesson:

            Day 1: Intro of the lesson: Oil Pastels

o   Have students clear off tables, except for paper towel and pencil

o   Hand out oil pastel practice value sheet

o   Discuss “I can” statement

o   Start discussion about oil pastels

§  Have you seen this material before?

§  What do you think it does?

§  Discuss the different scales

·         Value

·         Tint

·         Shade

·         Hue

§  Demonstrate how to do the scales

·         Discuss blending the oil pastels and craftmanship

§  Have students start on the scales

·         Explain clean up and oil pastel safety

·         Students need to place paper towel under the paper

·         Discuss how to apply the oil pastel techniques

·         Ask: What are you seeing the material doing?

§  Teacher walks around to help and critique scales

§  Have students fill out questions at the bottom of the paper as exit ticket

§  Clean up last 5 minutes

§  Students turn paper into box at the end of class, done or not

·         Day 2: Introduce Wayne Thiebaud

o   At the table, they need paper towel, scale, and pencil

§  Have students pick up scale

o   Show Thiebaud PowerPoint

§  “I can” statement within

o   Ask the following

§  What do you see within this artwork?

§  What are the elements of art?

§  How does this painting make you feel?

§  What do you believe the artist is trying to say?

o   Finish PowerPoint; explain project outline and rubric

o   Students are to create a cake inspired by Wayne Thiebaud

§  Cake needs to have shape, form, shade, tint, line, and texture

§  See rubric for directions

o   Handout smaller rough draft paper

§  Walk students through how to create the cake so it looks three dimensional

§  Students can practice coloring the rough draft but do not need to finish it

§  Rough draft will be turned back in with the value paper when the final is due.

§  Students review “I can” statements with think, pair, and share

§  Clean up and put away papers in art locker

·         Day 3: Working on project

o   Students get rough draft and value sheet out

o   Larger final paper and oil pastels will be on table

o   Review “I can” statement

o   Students will be allowed the day to work

o   Review “I can” statement at the end

·         Day 4: Finish and turn in

o   If needed, follow plans for day 3

o   Students will complete drawing practice while waiting for other students

o   Will start students on next lesson when over half is done

Teaching Methods and MIT

            Looking at the lesson, I believe that students would benefit by the variety of teaching methods and multi-intelligences used.  Students will get the chance with this lesson to use a material that they have not used within the class, learn about an artist, and have the freedom to create their work of art. Reviewing the lesson, students would have several opportunities to apply their different multiple intelligences.  While most of this lesson is within the visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and linguistic lesson, students will be doing the project by moving and creating a work of art.  They will have visual help with PowerPoint and examples.  In addition, with the linguistic style, students will have discussions and verbal instructions to help guide them.   The secondary MI that are focused on within the lesson is the logical-mathematic learning style.  Logical and mathematic intelligences will learn as they see the three-dimensional drawings of the cakes and discussing, critiquing, and thinking about calculations within the project.  In addition, the mixing of oil pastels is a discovery of proportions within art, applying reasoning skills. The musical learning style is a harder one to fit in.  Thiebaud studies a lot of pattern, repetition, and movement within his artwork.  This can be related to music when described to students but would not be obvious unless students were in this learning style.  Lastly, the interpersonal will have chance to talk to others about their artwork and see what other students are doing.  The intrapersonal will know their own goals and be able to find time to create on their own, letting their creativity thrive.

Within the video Primary Art, we see students learning by doing.  Students created an etch artwork inspired by the railroad that the artist and students took a ride on.  This artist lets the students express themselves in many ways and said that her role within the art project is to help students learn within the visual way (Illumina Digital, 2006).  This is not so they will become artists, but so they can develop skills and knowledge that can be applied within other areas (Illumina Digital, 2006).  Now the teacher within the classroom did not help with teaching this project.  Instead, the teacher also became a pupil and did the drawing and etchings along with his class.  Students enjoyed seeing the teacher within the process as well.  Both the artist and teacher, when interviewed, talk about how the arts helped build confidence within the students. Since the students had never done this before, they were all on the same level and students were not afraid to try.  Another thing they talk about within the video is the use of learning style and multiple intelligences.  Teachers apply these to all their lessons and want to hit several of the learning styles and multiple intelligences to help enhance the student learning.

            

           With applying the student’s different intelligences to the lesson, several students discussed how they like working with their hands and how it helped them connect their learning.  When we look at the different intelligences, everyone has the same intelligences, but there is a difference in the percentages of the intelligence within each of us (Grainger, 1999).  We are testing and teaching everyone the same within our school system.  It is important to recognize that with multiple intelligence, everyone can be taught, but we need to assess in different ways for these students.  Teachers need to be able to teach it in several different ways.  If a student asks the teacher to explain something again, or to teach it a different way, can we do that? If we cannot, it may show that we are stuck in one way of thinking and our understanding about the subject may not be where it should be (Grainger, 1999).  Thinking about this, how can we apply multiple intelligence to our own teaching?  First, we can have several introductions into the subject area. Second, use metaphors or analogies. Third is teaching differently, applying a variety of the model language (Grainger, 1999).   Having our teaching be able to translate to several students will help the students’ understanding of the subject area. 

Survey of Reflective Practice 

       Looking back and retaking the Survey of Reflective Practice: A tool for Assessing Development as a Reflective Practitioner, I found the biggest changes was within the surface reflection indicator and critical reflection indicator. It reminded me about how much I have learned about the types of teaching methods and reflections that are applied within teaching. When looking at how many tallies I made within each indicator, I found that the indicator with the most “frequently” tallies was within level three pedagogical reflection. A close second was level four, the critical reflection. I believe this is due to all the training our school has gone through with the pedagogical reflection aspect. Looking at the assessment criterial with marking “sometimes” while reviewing the indicators, I found that I don’t have a category that has a lot of “sometimes”. Within the survey, I only mark “sometimes” three times, and all were in different categories. When looking at which indicator I had the most “infrequently” tallies, they are level one, pre-reflection, and level two, surface reflection. With these two indicators both being “infrequently”, I am not sure if that is good or bad. I feel looking at the questions that having these two levels within the “infrequently” category is ok.

        In my eleven years of teaching, I have found that it is important to look back and reflect from where I started, and it is important that we teach our students to do the same. While a lot of the levels did not make huge changes, I did find myself much more aware of the different levels and how I use them. In addition, I would think about how, and why, my students were reflecting and how I was reflecting upon my teaching.

          Revisiting the three indicators that I focused on, it is neat to look at how these areas have changed. The first indicator was providing differential instruction to address student’s individual differences (Larrivee, 2008). This indicator was first marked as a “sometimes”, but it is now “frequently”. I knew I always adapted for student learning, but the reading that I have done within the class really helped me understand how I need to and gave examples to provide the instruction for each individual student. The area that made the most impact was with the multiple intelligences and how they can be applied.

            

          The second indicator that I focused on was from the practice indicator and was to consider students perspective within their own decision making (Larrivee, 2008).   When looking at how this has changed, I do this frequently with my students.  The wonderful thing about teaching art is students get a lot of freedom to make decisions within their own work.  As the teacher, I give outlines and layouts of how the lesson should be completed.  Students get to make decisions on how to complete the artwork.  They get to explore and discover what they do with the guidelines and really get to take responsibility for their own learning.

           

         Lastly, the third indicator was my largest jump when thinking about how to apply it with my students.  The indicator was within the critical reflection and was encouraging socially responsible actions within students (Larrivee, 2008).   This idea went from “infrequently” to between “frequently” and “sometimes”.   Within art, there are a lot of opportunities to teach students about their social responsibility and how they can be strong members of the community.  I believe that as educations we need to show the students how this happens; not to just tell them they should do this.  I feel like when students hear social responsibility, they feel as if they must be actively involved in the community.  This is not the case.  Students need to start with themselves and their social actions; how they portray themselves to others and treat others.  When they are comfortable with themselves and how they act to others, they can then go out to the community and be a viable member.

           

         With all these indicators, I hope that I can keep growing as an educator and building lessons to help my students succeed.  In the future, I hope that I can encourage my students to be more socially responsible and let them take responsibility with their decision-making skills.  In addition, I can, as an educator, take all students’ learning needs into consideration when teaching.

Conclusion

            Learning about the multiple intelligences theory really opened my eyes to the ways students learn.  With learning about the different theories, I believe that MIT has made the most impact in the way I look at teaching my students.  In creating this lesson, I see areas that I can improve on when considering the ways students learn.  It is a blessing that students can learn in so many ways, and, knowing that students learn differently, we just need to be able to tap into which way students learn best.

References

Grainger, C. (Producer). (1999). The mind's intelligences. [Video file]. Retrieved July 10, 2018

Illumina Digital (Producer). (2006). Primary Art [Video file]. Retrieved July 12, 2018, from https://search-alexanderstreet-com.proxy1.ncu.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity|video_work|1783362

Larrivee, B. (2008). Development of a tool to assess teachers' level of reflective practice. Reflective Practice, 9(3), 341-360, DOI: 10.1080/14623940802207451

State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education. (2015). Idaho Fine Arts Standards-Visual Arts [Visual arts standards for Idaho]. Http://www.sde.idaho.gov/academic/shared/humanities/visual-arts/Visual-Arts-Standards.pdf