Category: Pedagogy

Student intelligences

Lisa M Lane 2 Comments

We haven’t even started the semester, but already my students are coming into the classes, which I opened last Wednesday. I sent them all an email with instructions, since the classes are in Moodle rather than Blackboard. My first assignment is to take the Multiple Intelligences survey and introduce themselves in the context of their survey results.

Many of my students are rating very high on nature and body movement, then music. I guess I was expecting more visual/spatial, since I’ve been trying to cater to visual learners. I’m going to track this, and get a general result for my 150+ students all together, and see what comes out. I need a way to do this electronically, huh? Anyway, I’ve got to think about how to reach nature and body movement learners, though I have recently learned that online body learners do better in online classes if they have the computer on a high counter, and can move around the room and come back easily as they work. What do I do with a nature learner in a history class?

Ideas for online discussion

Lisa M Lane

One of my weakest areas recently has been online discussion, and not just because Blackboard’s new discussion board is execrable. I’ve been reading up on a good method for summarizing student’s contributions and moving the conversation forward: Collison et al’s Facilitating Online Learning: Effective Strategies for Moderators (2000). I created a summary for our roundtable workshop next week.

The main idea is that the instructor’s posts are “interventions” in the discussion. They should list mini-quotations from several student posts, noting common areas, tensions, etc. in the thread. The instructor then could take on one or more roles, generating a new direction, setting up a concept for reflection, mediating a polarized discussion, or offering an alternative view. All this while trying to avoid grandstanding or hijacking the conversation. The point is to guide the students’ interaction with each other in a way that furthers class goals, answering the needs of the larger group.

A 2001 video at MCC library

Lisa M Lane

In this case, of a Dallas Tele conference on the challenge of retaining online students (2001). Enchanted by the ideas of Joyce Bishop of Golden West, who had great ideas about multiple intelligences in online learning. I’m following her advice and have changed the first week’s discussion in all my online classes to have students take a Multiple Intelligences Assessment and discuss their results and what they need to make the class a successful experience for them.