Module 7 EDU 6526

Both Carl Rogers and Howard Gardner have great ideas regarding learner-centered practices.  Rogers does a great job explaining how important it is for teachers to make personal connections with the students.  Although I understood this before, when Rogers (1983) stated “for students identified as having learning difficulties, the teacher’s level of interpersonal facilitation was the single most important contributor to the amount of gain on all outcome measures”, I understood it with more of a sense of urgency to begin tomorrow to make even small attempts to give the students choices; even if at first I think they will not be the best use of time.  I believe the time saved in classroom management and the interest the students gain in their learning far surpass any time constraints.

I personally have some doubts as to the validity of Multiple Intelligences theory.  Gardner understands what students enjoy participating in, but it does not seem to me that he understands why people have differing aptitudes in certain areas.  It is most difficult for me to believe that there is something called, “musical intelligence”.  Music fundamentally involves at least three of the intelligences: bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, logical-mathematical, and linguistic concurrently.  Higher level music such as composing or improvising can use all eight intelligences at the same time.  I think it would be more proper to state that the multiple intelligences are not separate intelligences, but different evidences of an overall cognitive ability.

Advertisement