Chapter 3: Describing Intelligences in Students

In order to teach to students’ intelligences, it is first necessary to know what their intelligences are. There are many resources one can use to start learning about each student’s preferred intelligences. Looking at how they act when they are not participating in class is a great way to start noticing how they learn. If they are not being taught to, they are going to start doing something that does hold their interest. Collecting evidence, such as papers, photographs, and recordings, is another great way to start forming a picture of a student’s intelligences. School records are another way to gather data, but observing how well students did on tests and what their grades were, one can see if they tend to do better in gym or in English, which can point towards bodily-kinesthetic or verbal. Talking to parents is also key, because they’ve seen their child grow up and learn in ways different from those in school. But to really understand a student’s intelligences, one needs to ask the student. In order to learn how to teach my students, I will need to collect many different types of data and consult many resources to understand their individual make-up of intellgiences.