Giovanna Spantigati

HOW TO APPLY MIT

THE EXPLORATIONS PATHWAYS

Each pathway is a way to get to MIT and use it.

1) THE EXPLORATIONS PATHWAY

To give students experiences that exercise a range of intelligences.
To assess and document students' strength.

2) THE BUILDING ON STRENGHTS PATHWAY

To support literacy development.
To bridge student strengths to literacy learning.

3) THE UNDERSTANDING PATHWAY

To develop curricular options to enhance students' understanding.
To create diverse assessment options for students to demonstrate their understanding.

4) THE AUTHENTIC PROBLEMS PATHWAY

To use real-world problems and expert roles.
To create authentic assessments of student learning.

5) THE TALENT DEVELOPMENT PATHWAY

To design structured talent development opportunities.
To create opportunities to assess and nurture student talents.

1) Enriching the classroom environment to give students experiences across diverse domains and to provide a context for teachers to observe students in action.

2) It emphasizes a purposeful application of students' areas to strength to support literacy development and skill mastery. The strategies suggested in this pathway use the multiple intelligences as a tool to engage students in learning by tapping into areas in which they are successful and enjoy. Teachers who work with children experiencing difficulties in the basic literacies have found this pathway particularly relevant to their goals. It suggest remediation that focuses on students' strengths at least as intently as such programs typically focus on deficits.
3) This pathway is used to demonstrate their understanding. MI theory is used to enhance and diversify how topics and concepts are approached.
4) This pathway uses MI theory as a framework for implementing authentic, problem-based learning experiences. It tries to simulate the real world experience of intelligences in action by providing real or realistic problems to solve. In these learning situations students assume the role of the practicing professional and use authentic means to solve problems and develop products. They become engineers, sculptors, actors, or poets in the classroom, and their products are used to communicate their creative solutions to problems they encountered.

5) It focuses on developing programs that identify and nurture students' talents. This pathway creates the context to assist students at promise in a particular domain.

Getting started with the pathways first requires identifying the primary goals for using MI theory. The Pathways should not be confining. They are meant to help educators focus on the most appropriate approaches to MI implementation for their goals, and more specifically, on the most appropriate place o begin their MI journey. It is more often the case than not that people across the boundaries of pathways, moving between and among them as their goals require.

ENTRY POINT APPROACH

The Entry Point Approach is an approach to learning - a structure for designing curricula rather than a particular curricular vehicle. Any topic can be approached in at last five different ways. We might think of the topic as a room with at least five doors or entry points into it. Students choose which entry point is most appropriate for them and which routes are most comfortable to follow. Awareness of these entry points can help the teacher introduce new materials in ways in which they can be easily grasped by a range of students.
The Entry Points are:

AESTHETIC, NARRATIVE, LOGICAL/QUANTITTIVE, FOUNDATIONAL, EXPERIENTIAL.

It can be used by educators and students to examine a particular topic, to reflect upon thought and knowledge, and to organize teaching and learning. MI theory describes different aspects of those who do the leaning, while the Entry Point Approach describes different aspects of what is being learned. MI theory may be more useful in considering students (those who are learning), and the Entry Point Approach may be more useful in considering text (what is being learned).

THE AESTHETIC WINDOW. This is the entry point through which learners respond to formal and sensory qualities of a subject or work of art.

THE NARRATIVE WINDOW. The entry point through which learners respond to the narrational elements of a subject or work of art.

THE LOGICAL/QUANTITATIVE WINDOW. The entry point through which learners respond to aspects of a subject or work of art that invite deductive reasoning or numerical consideration.

THE FOUNDATIONAL WINDOW. The entry point through which learners respond to the broader concepts or philosophical isues raised by a subject or work of art.

THE EXPERIENTIAL WINDOW. The entry point through which learners respond to a subject or work of art by actually doing something with their hands or bodies.

1) THE EXPLORATIONS PATHWAY
Museums and discovery centers, which offer exciting avenues for students to learn and create in authentic ways and for adults to catch them in action. Children explore ideas and domains and learn about their likes and dislikes, their strengths and challenges. While children are involved in these free explorations, teachers focus not on success or failure, but on here and how students direct their energies.

Observe students. To collect information on how your students engage their intelligences, direct your attention to the following telling behaviors:
- Choices they make when given options
- Roles they take
- How they handle unanticipated problems
- What captures their attention
- When they lose interest
- Different ways to communicate ideas (include physical actions as well as what they say).

STORYBOARDING

It is a strategy that students can use to help them remember ideas and communicate them in a logical manner using visualization and spatial problem solving. It is also helpful in allowing students to elaborate on and focus ideas. It offers opportunities for both critical and creative thinking in both spatial and the personal intelligences.

TEACHING MUSIC AND MATH

Each day of the class the daily temperature would be noted and entered into a data table on the board. They must not be told why they were observing temperature to avoid the fear of what they may be asked to do with it. Music to teach math.
THE MOVING IMAGE
Develop poetry writing skills using sensory imagery and creative dance. Entry points: bodily kinesthetic musical and spatial intelligences to help student understand and create figurative language. Arrange an open space in the classroom to allow for free movement by students and to permit easy viewing of small group improvisations. Each student picks one object from a paper bag. Ask students to spread out in the dance space with improvisation interpreting the object. Then discussion and poetry writing.

2) BUILDING ON STRENGHT
Identify the abilities to teach.

EXAMPLES APPLIED IN THE CLASSROOMS

- Chris was an expert builder. Teachers incorporated design and engineering activities into the curriculum a san entry point to writing activities. They brainstormed ways that building activities could be bridge to writing.

- Persuasive essays. In a certain class there were students who were good at creative writing but were not able to formulate arguments based on their opinions. Which intelligences are involved? Interpersonal and intrapersonal to give opinions and to convince the others. Therefore they used the moral-dilemma. A story and a discussion. The story is the following: Some students break a window; one of them repents, teachers see him and punish him. Must he tell the names of his mates or not? The students were then divided into groups to discuss their choice (intra) and convince their mates (inter). At the end, they wrote it down. Yvette, who was not good at English, thanks to her inter and intrapersonal intelligences became the leader, organized the group and her writing was very good
USE DIFFERENT INTELLIGENCES TO GET TO WRITING

3) PUTTING UNDERSTANDING UP FRONT
Understanding is a matter of being able to do a variety of thought-demanding things with a topic - like explaining, finding evidence and examples, generalizing, applying, analogizing, and representing the topic in a new way. For example, if a student knows Newtonian physics in the sense of being able to apply to equations to routine textbook problems, we would not be convinced that he really understand the theory. Yet if he finds examples in everyday experience it shows he has got it. Understanding means to put into practice. For instance you do not learn to roller skate just by reading instructions. Most school activities are not performances that demonstrate understanding. Rather, students build knowledge on routine skills. To get the understanding we want, we need to put understanding up front.

ENTRY POINT - DESCRIPTION
NARRATIVE (linguistic intelligence) - Use a story to introduce a topic
AESTHETIC (spatial-naturalistic) -Use art to analyze some aspects about the topic
NUMERIC/MATHEMATICAL (logical/mathematical intelligence) - Describe the quantitative aspects
EXPERIENTIAL (personal intelligences, bodily kinesthetic, linguistic) - Manual works
MUSICAL (musical intelligence) - Listen to the music related to a certain period of time to understand the rhythm applied in that particular historical context.

The goal is that students demonstrate their understanding in several ways.
Steps:
- Develop a variety of activities as entry points to convey ideas. - Made connections
- Apply the idea to new situations
- Look at concept across disciplines

4) THE AUTHENTIC PROBLEMS PATHWAY

Solve real problems using their own intelligences.
- Generate or choose a problem which can be of interest for the community
- Identify professional roles
- Organize groups
- Keep a diary

PRACTICAL EXAMPLE APPLIED IN A CLASS

LESSON ON THE MIDDLE AGES
Did the students come away with the understanding that personal freedom was limited to the nobility, that distribution of wealth was un fair, that the Church held supreme power? In other words did they understand the relationship of power, freedom and wealth? Answer these questions:
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of the feudal system?
- Who had personal rights?
- What is the relationship between power and wealth?

ENTRY POINT - IDEE
Students simulated the situation, setting up a medieval town and assuming the roles of the people in the Kingdom (e.g., artisans, entertainers, serfs, clergymen, lords, ladies, knights and the king and queen). Each day the class would be given a scenario to enact assuming their respective roles. For instance, one scenario might be the king's desire to build a new castle in the country. The students discuss how to finance the project, what the castle would look like and who would need to be involved in planning the project. Another situation might be addressing issues within the social realm. The son of a lord makes friend with a little serf child but is forbidden to play with him. Is it fair? Is money related to power? By keeping and sharing journal entries the children will begin to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the feudal system. To extend their students understanding of the idea of social system the team planned to target similar ideas in a science unit on the ants and bees. The team felt that the study of the social system in the animal kingdom would afford many opportunities for expression of the naturalist intelligence. Focusing on a continuing theme across disciplines enables brings students to a deeper understanding of the concepts introduced in the unit of the Middle Ages.

EXPLORATIONS
The Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages knights were often on fight and it was difficult to say who was fighting against who. The knights solved this problem tailoring jackets with symbols that identified their Lords. The symbols were eagles, diamonds, crown, feathers, dragons and lions.
- Tailor jackets
- Tools: paper, pen, material, etc.
Medieval games:
- Look at medieval games and empathize with those children.
CREATE
During Middle Ages music was used during celebrations and feasts. Lords, peasants, with different instruments.
- Listen to Gregorian chants and minstrel music..
- Create a ballade for the event.
Castles
- Build a caste: cardboard, boxes, flags, colors or draw.

INVESTIGATE
Feasts: lords and serfs, different feasts like weddings. Food: bread was important and it was brought to table together with dishes with different decorations.
- Make bread and use it as decoration
Clothes: clothes for rich people and clothes for poor people.
- Look for them on books and tailor clothes