MI Chapter 8

This chapter focuses on how educators can incorporate all eight intelligences into their classroom management. Most of the suggestions try to bring focus away from the usual linguistic approach and but it on other alternative approaches. One example that Armstrong gave was of a teacher who was trying to gain the classes attention by talking over them. When that didn’t work to gain their attention she just yelled “shut up”. And even then it only quieted the class for a minute and the whole scene just happened again. Rather than using your voice to talk over your students you could have a gesture (bodily kinesthetic) that means its time to be quiet. When you raise your hand every one is to mimic you in response showing that they are paying attention. Or you could have a musical signal, a picture, or other strategies that play on different intelligences other than linguistic. When preparing for transitions you can have specific cues that let your students know it is time to move on. You can focus on one intelligence for this and have many different cues for different activities. If you choose musical you can fit the music to be appropriate for the activity that it signals. If you choose spatial then you can choose a picture that represents what the students are supposed to be transitioning into. To communicate class rules you can also utilize the multiple intelligences. Although for this particular aspect of classroom management the linguistic approach is the most common you could still get creative and use other or many other intelligences. When dealing with disciplinary matters you can also utilize multiple intelligences. If a student breaks one of the class rules then what better way is there to reach them than through the way they learn best. So if you have a kinesthetic learner you could teach them how to deal with stressful situations by taking deep breaths. Or you could have them role play appropriate and inappropriate behaviors to show their understanding of them.
Many people had mixed feelings about this chapter. They liked the chapter because it offered many valuable ideas; however, they felt that this book is geared more toward elementary grade levels as far as student examples go. This means that most everyone’s reflections had the general consensus that there is no teenager out there that is going to want to walk around a room making an animal noise in order to find a classmate who is making the same animal noise. There are also other kinds of classroom management ideas that seem a little age-inappropriate such as classroom rules being designated to animals like a respectful rabbit and a quiet quail. The exception to this is that people liked the idea of using the school mascot.