All learning styles and intelligences are important for a teacher to incorporate within their classroom. Without involving all of them, it becomes difficult for the teacher to provide the understanding of the material to all students. The learning style instrument I used to figure out my learning style allowed me to view my dominant multiple intelligences out of nine through a survey. The nine intelligences includes naturalist, musical, logical, existential, interpersonal, kinesthetic, verbal, intrapersonal and visual. Each one of these intelligences is separated into sections with ten statements, if the person agrees with the statement it receives a point. After each section you total the points. The higher the score, the more likely you are to be dominant in that intelligence. At the end of the survey you compare your scores to the other scores through plotting them on a bar graph and the highest scores is your strongest learning styles. This survey can be found at http://surfaquarium.com/MI/inventory.htm.
Once I completed the survey I found out I have three strong learning styles including logical, existential and intrapersonal intelligence. These three intelligences is not a surprise to me, as a math major I knew that I think logically. Due to my inability to be creative and love for problem solving, logical thinking are what best suites me. Math has always come easier to me than being able to write a paper or paint a picture. With logical thinking being one of my learning styles it makes sense that I think existentially as well. Thinking existentially means to only base your information off of what you have seen or done; what has already existed in your life. While processing information I have a hard time thinking outside of the box, being creative and looking beyond what I have already seen. This is one reason I love math, you take an equation and apply it to a problem that you have at hand. A reason I have trouble writing papers in an English class is due to the thought that I have to create ideas and thoughts, especially in creative writing, that may not have been through experiences of my own. My last intelligence of being intrapersonal is an important part to my life. I am a person that enjoys being alone at times, to enjoy a more quiet and peaceful environment. When doing school work I also like to work alone, being able to get work done by myself so I can be more productive. The only times I do like to work in groups is if I do not understand the material fully. This is a surprise to me though because I am part of a sorority. Living with sixty girls I rarely get time alone or receive a quiet environment. With this said I believe that I have leaned toward becoming interpersonal due to my surroundings. Overall I believe these learning styles due fit me very well to my personality and my learning pattern.
With my learning styles of logically, existential and intrapersonal thinking I hope that I do not fully focus on these intelligences but on all nine of them so I can reach every student. As a math teacher I know that it will be easy to teach the students through logical thinking than any other intelligence. To reach every student and make the class interesting and fun I need to incorporate creativity in the classroom giving the opportunity to reach all students. A math class needs most students to work alone so they are able to understand the material all be themselves than basing their answers off of other people. Since I am an intrapersonal type it could be easy for me to teach this but I have to remember that there are interpersonal learners and I need to reach them through group work and projects. Another aspect I would like to incorporate in my classroom is the ability to take the information and portray it visually. This does not include just writing the equations down on paper but to use pictures to allow them to understand the problem and allow them to memorize the information faster. Portraying all the information fully in every learning style is a challenge but should goal for a teacher to be able to reach every student in their diversity of intelligences.
