Lesson Plan – Multiple Intelligences
Grade 6
Before:
Pose the following questions to students and allow them to discuss their answers.
What does it mean to be intelligent?
How do we measure a person’s intelligence?
Think about the ways that you are smart.
During:
Explain to students that many people have had different ideas about how we learn and that one person in particular, Howard Gardner, had an interesting theory. Briefly run down the eight different intelligences. I have 81/2 x 11 posters that I made and laminated to give a visual.
Tell students that you are going to give them the opportunity to find out which of the intelligences are their strongest. Hand out the multiple intelligences survey and give students time to complete. Once students are complete, have them line up according to their highest score. I usually have each of the intelligences posted around the room so that students can look around at the difference groups. Discuss what students notice about the results. Which group has the highest number of students? The lowest? Is there a group that has no one at all? Next, have students move to their lowest score and ask them same questions. Tally up the class scored and create a bar graph. I keep this graph posted in my classroom for the entire year.
Now that students have some background knowledge, divide them into 8 groups. Have each group select one multiple intelligence from a hat. Tell students to keep their selection quiet so that the other groups do not know what they have. As a group, students read about a selected intelligence. They then create and perform a skit for the class to demonstrate what that intelligence is. The rest of the class has to guess.
After:
Have students answer the following reflection question in their journal.
Why is it important for you to know which of the multiple intelligences is your strongest? Weakest?
