Summary of MI and teaching strategies by Thomas A.

Reading 8 – Thomas Armstrong, 1994, Multiple intelligences in the classroom (pp 65-85)
MI and Teaching Strategies


“If the only tool you have is hammer, everything around you looks like a nail.” – Anonymous


MI theory suggests that one set of teaching strategies will work best for all students at all times.


Teaching strategies for Linguistic Intelligence
- Storytelling
Weave essential concepts, ideas and instructional goals into a story that you tell directly to students.
- Brainstorming
Give special acknowledgement to all students for their original thoughts.
- Tape recording
Collector of information in interview and reporter of information in talking books
- Journal writing
Can be kept entirely private between teachers and students…
Draws heavily upon intrapersonal intelligence insofar as students work individually and use the journal to reflect upon their lives.
- Publishing
Educator must send the message that writing is a powerful tool for communicating ideas and influencing people.
When children see that others care enough about their writing to duplicate it, discuss it, and even argue about it, they become linguistically empowered and are motivated to continue developing their writing craft.


Teaching strategies for Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
- Calculations and quantifications
Even at non-Math subject
- Classifications and categorizations
Logical mind can be stimulated anytime information is put into some kind of rational framework
- Socratic Questioning
Instead of talking at students, the teacher participates in dialogues with them, aiming to uncover the rightness and wrongness of their belief
- Heuristics
The field of heuristics refers to a loose collection of strategies, rules of thumb, guidelines, and suggestions for logical problem solving
- Science Thinking
Students can study influence of science on history and present day situations.
Science provides another point of view that can enrich student’s perspective.
Teaching strategies for Spatial Intelligence
- Visualisation
- Colour Cues
- Picture Metaphors
A metaphor is using one idea to refer to another and a picture metaphor expresses an idea in a visual image.
- Idea Sketching
Involve asking students to draw key point, main idea, central theme, or core concept being taught. Neatness and realism should be DE-emphasised in favour of a succession of quick sketches that help articulate an idea eg Pictionary
Do not evaluate the drawing themselves; instead, seek to “draw out” students’ understanding from the sketches.
- Graphic Symbols


Teaching strategies for Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
- Body Answers
- Classroom Theater
Can be one minute improvisation of a reading passage or a one-hour play that sums up students’ understanding of a broad learning theme.
Try warm up exercises for older students who maybe reluctant to engage in dramatic activities.
- Kinesthetic Concepts
Translate information from linguistic or logical symbol systems into purely bodily-kinesthetic expression
- Hands-on Thinking
Manipulating objects or by making things with their hands.
- Body Maps
Using human body as pedagogical tool.


Teaching strategies for Musical Intelligence
- Rhythms, songs, raps and chants

Inviting students to create songs, raps, or chants that summarise, synthesize, or apply meaning from subjects they are studying moves students to an even higher level of learning.
- Discographies
Supplement your bibliographies for the curriculum with lists of recorded musical selections – tapes, compact discs, and records, - that illustrate, embody, or amplify the content you want to convey.
- Supermemory Music
Students could more easily commit information, to memory if they listened to the teacher’s instruction against musical background. Baroque and classical musical selections in 4/4 time were found to be particularly effective.
- Music Concepts
Musical tones can be used as a creative tool for expressing concepts, patterns, or schemas in many subjects.
- Mood Music
Locate recorded music that creates an appropriate mood or emotional atmosphere for a particular lesson or unit.


Teaching strategies for Interpersonal Intelligence
- Peer sharing
- People Sculptures
The beauty of this approach is in having people represent things that were formerly represented only in books, overheads, or lectures. People sculptures raise learning out of its remote theoretical context and put it into an immediately accessible social setting.
- Cooperative Groups
- Simulations
Involves a group of people coming together to create an “as-if” environment.


Teaching strategies for Intrapersonal Intelligence
- One minute reflection period
Frequent “time out” for introspection or deep thinking. One min reflection periods offer students time to digest the information presented or to connect it to happenings in their own lives. They also provide a refreshing change of pace that helps students stay alert and ready for the next activity.
- Personal connection
Making connection between what is being taught and the lives of their students ie “what does all this have to do with my life?”
- Choice time
Give students choices is as much a fundamental principle of good teaching; building opportunities for students to make decisions about their learning experiences.
- Feeling-toned moments
To feed that emotional brain, educators need to teach with feeling. Educators are responsible for creating moments in teaching where students laugh, feel angry, express strong opinion, get excited about a topic, or feel a wide range of other emotions.
Educator can model, make it safe and provide experiences that evoke feeling-toned reactions.
- Goal setting session
Necessary skills for leading a successful life.