MI: Curriculum Development (Chapter 5)

      The fifth chapter of Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, by Thomas Armstrong, focused on MI theory's contribution to curriculum development. Due to increased standards for both students and teachers and the pressures to do well on standardized testing, teaching has become rather mundane with heavily linguistic themes. In an MI based classroom it is crucial to include the different intelligences in the curriculum to provide equal learning opportunities to every student, “teachers need to expand their repertoire of techniques, tools, and strategies...” (pg. 54). Furthermore, lectures and worksheets do not make connections with life events easily attainable. Teachers that take MI theory into consideration allow themselves to check their own teaching abilities for ease of understanding in regards to every learning style, “Mi theory essentially encompasses what good teachers have always done in their teaching: reaching beyond the text and the blackboard to awaken students' minds” (pg. 56). Knowing that there are eight intelligences it can be difficult to incorporate them all into your lesson, however, if “the teacher continually shifts her method of presentation from linguistic to spatial to musical and so on, often combining intelligences in creative ways” (pg. 56) it will allow ample opportunity for everybody to learn. Another technique that can influence the success of a lesson is its applicability to the students' lives. Thematic education allows the teacher to break the wall down between their lesson and the lives of the students, “themes cut through traditional curricular boundaries, weave together subjects and skills that are found naturally in life, and provide students with opportunities to use their multiple intelligences practical ways” (pg. 67). MI theory is an extremely useful tool that every teacher should be knowledgable about to create an equal opportunity environment.