These chapters, on the whole, talk a lot about you can be sure that making sure that your multiple intelligence friendly, differentiated classroom is fair for all students; that the multiple intelligences can be used to practically everything you could need help with in the classroom. The eighth chapter of UBD talks heavily about grading students, and how to best do it in the differentiated classroom. The chapter urges that you really should not grade students on pre- or formative assessments, rather just checking them for completion. The problem with grading these in the differentiated classroom is that all students learn at different speeds, and grading them all the same way is not going to make for student success. It's much better at the these early points to look for progress instead of mastery. It also talked about, just as students learn differently, they also tests differently, and giving them options for assessment can hugely effect their success in exhibiting their understanding. The MI chapters covered a range of multiple intelligence related topics. Chapter eight talked quite a lot about using the multiple intelligences to get the attention of your students. This is something that I had never really considered to be a possibility, but it totally makes sense. A student's multiple intelligence strengths tend to correspond with their interests, so of course using them to keep a class interested would be a great tactic. This is really helpful, because I do worry that I wil not be able to get and keep the attention of my class. An area also covered was how the multiple intelligences can be used in special education, the chapter provides examples for each of the multiple intelligences. These activities are at their roots, however, the same as what you would use in any classroom, as the chapter so eloquently says, "the best learning activities for special needs students are those that are most successful with all students” (p154). The book goes on into the next chapter to talk about how student's internalize information based on their multiple intelligence strengths, this can involve making up little songs or rhymes for some students, or for some others maybe visualizing the information, or repeating it aloud.
I love how these chapters make it clear that grades are just a snapshot of student ability, especially when you're grading tests, any number of factors could play into a students performance. A good student on a bad day could fail, and understanding that and being flexible enough to help remedy that is really important. I also really enjoyed that they talked even more in depth than it has before about how to use the multiple intelligence theory as a tool in your classroom. The idea of using them to get and keep the attention of students, and to keep them on task better, is something that I hadn't thought about, but I love the idea. It kind of reminds me of the MEL structure that we're learning about with Dr. Theresa, two of the important components are connections and context, which would be really important when using the MIs as a way to get and keep student attention. Basically, I know I'm not alone in just wanting to have a classroom where students feel like they can always succeed, no matter how daunting a task may seem, and the information in these chapters was really helpful as it gave further ways to create this kind of environment.
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