Chapter 7 in MI looks at the classroom environment and how that can benefit from a MI standpoint. The classroom arrangement is also discussed in that if the classroom is cluttered transitions will not be smooth and learners with special needs will be distracted. Room clutter also will impact the way in which students can enter and leave the classroom which would add to the room traffic and confusion. The chapter goes on to discuss learning centers and how these can help to foster the multiple intelligences . The centers are not only broken out for the various intelligences they are also broken out as permanent open-ended, temporary topic-specific, temporary open-ended, and permanent topic-specific. The benefit to the permanent centers is that they will always be there to provide a place for the students to be challenged with a variety of activities. The temporary centers change frequently and offer the opportunity to challenge the various intelligences. The various learning centers would be a library area (linguistic), math lab (mathematical/logical), art area (spatial), hands-on center (bodily-kinesthetic), music lab (musical), round table for group discussions (interpersonal), loft (intrapersonal) and an animal center (naturalist). It is also important to understand that the learning centers do not necessarily have to be a part of every classroom, if there is team teaching or joining classrooms then one classroom might have one or two with others residing in the other classrooms.
This chapter was felt by many to be a very interesting chapter and gave lots of good ideas. There was concern expressed over how exactly these would fit into a high school classroom. And in doing the research many of the photos and stories were all for elementary age students. There is interesting application when it came to classroom arrangement and how much that impacts learning. Even if it is not possible to apply all of the theories to our individual classrooms the lessons can be kept in mind and see if there is a better way to work our classrooms.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Dan,
I really liked your link about Learning Stations. We have been reading about them lately, but I have not read so much detailed ideas about them. That Concept to Classroom site is a good one, I think it has come up on a bunch of people's blogs. Good work :)
Dan
I really like that classroom arrangement website. I think its better then the one that Dr. Theresa gave us yesterday!
The learning centers link had a lot of great tips and sample ideas. When used in conjunction with the arrangement link it can really help create the type of classroom that the chapter talks about
Dan, I really liked your first and second link. Your first link was fun to play with and will be helpful for Dr. Theresa's project. The second link also had a lot of good links within it! Good find:)
Dan,
The link for the Classroom Architect is awesome because we can use it for Dr. Theresa's class and we can actually save it unlike the link that she gave us. Nice find.
Your last link gave some great ideas for how to set up some different areas in your room for the different intelligences. The information is set up in an easy format.
Your second link I found to be really informative and interesting. Not only was there way more information then I was expecting but it made me consider how I really want my classroom arranged and what kind of atmosphere I want in my classroom. I am definatly saving that site!
Post a Comment