Multiple Intelligences,Multimedia

As soon as I was introduced to Multiple Intelligences during the lecture,what came into my mind was only IQ testing.At the same time,I was trying to find out which of the intelligences I possessed.Actually,my prior knowledge on multiple intelligences was that there are only eight intelligences and each person possesses only one of them because intelligence is our intellectual potential developed at birth,which can be measured and cannot really be changed.Surprisingly,all these characteristics of intelligence were part of the traditional view of intelligence.The key difference between the traditional view of intelligence and Multiple Intelligences theory helped me to clarify and more importantly,to re-evaluate my knowledge on multiple intelligences.
I have never heard of Gardner's theory on multiple intelligences and what fascinated me of his theory was his claim that we all possess the different types of intelligences,which can either be reinforced or just disregarded and weakened.I found the benefits of applying the multiple intelligence approach to the teaching classroom extremely helpful.Contrary to the traditional view of intelligence,multiple intelligence approach underlies the idea that teachers will not teach the same material to every students,but has to tailor the lesson according to students different needs taking into consideration students strengths and weaknesses.What captured my attention were also the different activities we can use in the classroom in order to nurture and strengthen students intelligences.For example we may involve students in storytelling,debates,writing articles either to emphasize their linguistic-verbal intelligence,or just to nurture this type of intelligence.
There are other important activities we can use in class with our students in relation to the nine types of intelligences.After we discussed about each intelligence and the activities used for each of the intelligences,I thought that combining the activities and the intelligences together may have an effective impact on students.For example,when using storytelling,you may also use predicting which in return will help to strengthen students verbal-linguistic intelligence as well as their logical-mathematical skills.
The third type of intelligence,that of musical intelligence made me think about how enjoyable was my learning experience of English when my teacher used songs to teach us vocabulary or grammar.I still remember how my English teacher taught us parts of the body using a song.As we sang the song as a class,we also performed physically what the song demanded.Again,I would really like to emphasize how beneficial the learning process becomes,when the teacher combines the intelligences together.
Only after thinking critically,I can understand how beneficial is  the equal importance we should give each intelligence.We should not forget that our students possess all of these intelligences and each student has a unique combination of them.For example,instead of providing feedback on students projects or assignments,have students give and receive feedback from each-other.That will be beneficial because it promotes cooperative learning,peer teaching and strengthens students social skills.
Knowing which student has the most potential for each intelligence will help students to maximally use their strengths and nurture their weaknesses.However,we as teachers  should not be enduced to use multiple intelligence theory to have IQ-labels for our students.That will make us step back on the traditional view of intelligence.Creating the adequate environment will help students to express better their strengths and abilities by boosting their self-esteem and involving them more into the learning process.Applying multiple intelligence to the classroom means that we focus on what students are capable of doing and not on what they cannot do.
Using multimedia in the classroom will also help to strengthen students intelligences.Actually,I have always thought of the benefits of using multimedia in the classroom in very shallow terms,including the opportunity we offer students to work collaboratively and improve their undestanding.What I added to my previous knowledge on the benefits of multimedia were making learners learn and then apply real-world skills,promoting students'autonomy,developing their organization skills and even making them aware of copyright laws.
Multimedia allows the teacher to present information in a non-linear sequence,something that texts do not,so that students do not lose their enthusiasm because we will not use the same way of presenting information.Nowadays,the role of the teacher has also changed.They are no longer in the center of the lesson,but adopt different roles,such as that of the promoter,resource etc.Being resources,teachers can use hypermedia as a system that fascilitates interaction between the reader and the text.Clickable links allow learners to go from one page to the other,saving both time and money.
Multimedia increases motivation and achievement.That reminds  me of the cases when multimedia was used wisely by the teacher into the classroom and how much involved we became when watching a video or pictures that conveyed information and clarification that couldn't be conveyed through printed pictures or just through verbal explanations by the teacher.
To sum it up,being learners of the past,when multimedia was just a cool tool,and teachers of today,when multimedia is incorporated into the teaching process,I find the use of multimedia somehow challenging.However,I have a compelling reason to incorporate multimedia in the classroom, apart from all the advantages we mentioned about multimedia,which is that multimedia will fascilitate both the learning and the teaching process.



Thank you for reading.I hope you really enjoyed it.