Unit 4 and 5 (assignment 4)
According to Howard Gardner schooling makes sense when students derive meaning and purpose. He writes “MI theory begins with the identification of products, problems, and solutions that matter within a given cultural context (Gardner, 1993 p. 36). He is critical of the schooling structures that are increasingly disengaged from how and why human beings solve intractable problems and fashion products that are valued in respective cultures. He argues that our society suffers from three biases which he nicknamed “westist,” “testist” and “bestist” (p.12) Testist because we focus exclusively on human abilities that can be tested. If it cannot be testable, it is not worth paying attention.
We need to recognize and nurture all varied human intelligences in our classrooms. Others have attributed these varied human intelligences to how the human brain works.
Gardner is also critical of the fact that schooling emphasizes two intelligences – verbal linguistic and logical mathematical. If a student is not endowed with any of these two intelligences, schooling sends a strong message to him or her: you are a failure.
1. A unit of curriculum in your content area: The unit would be learned in 3-4 lessons. In English this may be “Relating the themes that emerge from a novel to globalization”
2. Describe the process and the final products that would suit at least 3 intelligences. Multiple intelligences should underline the importance of the process and the final product. The process includes lesson activities, students and teacher interactions, formative assessment and also feedback. The products from these processes may: a) verbal-linguistics - letter to the editor of a local newspaper commenting on globalization, b) spatial - a poster depicting the world as a global village that can used in an international celebration; c) music - a musical encompassing 4 genres from four continents. These products are real, they can be used in the community and they make sense and meaning in relation to the theme of the novel.
3. Double spaced 4- page paper
4. Cite names of the authors whose ideas you use
5. Frame your work as a descriptive narrative: but let the reader know the objective of each one of the 3 lessons. For example the objectives of the first lesson may be: The students will narrate incidents that encompass a theme; student will give evidences to support or argue the emergence of a theme.
6. Score 30 points: distributed evenly to the processes and products described. Special merit will go to a logical alignment of processes and products.