strategies for teaching diverse learners

The two example of how these two teachers are using theory of multiple intelligences in the assignments are:

1. One of the teachers (Kate Barnett) was encouraging the students to use their linguistic and Spatial-Visual Intelligences to make the students understand about the article, Coral reefs. She asked the students to report back what they learned about the vocabulary for the selected article. She also gave options for the students like; students who are comfortable in writing could write it and students who have trouble in writing could use pictures to represent their understanding.

2. Another teacher reported that she engages linguistic, spatial-visual and intrapersonal intelligences to teach their students. For understanding the vocabulary, she also gave options to the students to write a definition, draw picture or provide personal examples of how they are connected to their own life situations.

Since the article is about coral reefs, I think they could have also used musical and bodily kinesthetic intelligences to report what they learned about the vocabulary. Because, all the students will not fall under any of these two categories. So for example, if a student is good in musical intelligences, he/she could use some sort of sounds to represent what they learned or understood. If a student is good at bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, he/she could use their body movement to demonstrate what they learned.

I would suggest one of the visual learning software ‘Inspiration’ to teach diverse learners. I have used this software for ‘concept mapping’ and I think this would be an interesting tool for the learners. There are a lot of templates available and at the same time we can also create our own.

self-Introduction

Halo Everyone...

I am Tamilselvi Gopal. I am a full-time graduate student in science education at the Center for Science and Mathematics Education (USM). This is my fourth semester towards my doctoral degree. I earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Biology, and another bachelor’s degree in education, back in India. Before joining this program, for four years, I worked as a biology teacher for middle and high school students. At present, I am teaching Anatomy and Physiology labs (BSC 250L) at USM from spring 2008.

I have not taken any online courses before. This is my very first experience. During the progress of my degree I got opportunities to develop some computer skills like word processing - while preparing for the assignments, spreadsheets for data analysis of a project work, and power point slides for presentations. I also have experience working with Adobe acrobat for PDF, Inspiration for concept mapping, and Inkscape for graphics. I used the communication tools like email, listserv and chat while I was submitting my works for other SME and BSC projects, presentations and assignments. I really like the way email, listserv and chats work, since it saves time and avoids confusion.

During my course work I also had chances to use technology tools like podcasts, wikis, blogs, and video clips. When I was working on research projects, for any unknown topic I first go to wikipedia to get an idea about the concept, and then later I collect some more reliable data to get deeper understanding. For the presentations, I have used video clips from Google videos or You tube videos to make the presentation interesting and easy. When I am browsing to learn something new, I prefer to use some video clips or pod casts to listen and understand. Even in some of my classes my instructors used them.

I think this course would teach me more educational technologies than those I am aware of. At the same time, I also hope this course would help me to implement efficiently the tools and techniques that I already use in my class.

Cheers

Selvi