I. Naturalist

A. Core Characteristics:

· Natural Orientation – identification with living organisms and their environments

· Attribute Orientation – finding common traits among items

· Categorization – identifying categories by attribute

· Hierarchical Reasoning – ranking items by significance and relationship

· Schematic Memory – internalizing and recalling information by attribute, category or hierarchy

B. Students with a strong naturalist intelligence:

· Are intrinsically organized

· Demonstrate an empathy with nature

· Pick up on subtle differences in meaning

· Like to make collections of materials

· Enjoy sorting and organizing materials

· Impose their own sense of order on new information

· Respond to semantic mapping activities

· Prefer charts, tables, diagrams and timelines

C. Support this intelligence in the classroom by:

· Using graphic organizers

· Providing sorting and attribute grouping tasks

· Brainstorming categories

· Charting hierarchies

· Utilizing semantic mapping of ideas

· Building portfolios of student work

· Making connections to the natural world

· Modeling strategies for finding common attributes, categories and hieracrchies across the curriculum

II. Musical

A. Core Characteristics:

· Aural Orientation – heightened listening ability

· Patterning – seeking all kinds of patterns, not just in sound

· Resonance - identification with patterns as an expression of experience

· Audiation – thinking musically rather than verbally

B. Students with a strong musical intelligence:

· Seek patterns in new information

· Find patterns in their environment

· Are particularly drawn to sound

· Respond to cadence in language

· Enjoy moving to rhythms

· Pick up terms and phrases in foreign languages easily

· Use patterning to both internalize and recall skills, ideas and concepts

C. Support this intelligence in the classroom by:

· Working with pattern blocks

· Hearing sounds in one's environment

· Moving to rhythm

· Drawing visual patterns

· Learning a foreign language

· Identifying rhyme schemes

· Finding patterns in sequences of numbers

· Listening to a symphony

· Deciphering code

· Learning to read music

III. Logical

A. Core Characteristics:

· Linear Reasoning – seeking order and consistency in the world

· Concrete Reasoning - breaking down systems into their components

· Abstract Reasoning - using symbols that represent concrete ideas

· Causal Relationships – identifying cause and effect within a system

· Complex Operations – performing sophisticated algorithms

B. Students with a strong logical intelligence:

· Seek order

· Reason scientifically

· Identify relationships

· Enjoy testing theories

· Like completing puzzles

· Excel at calculating numbers

· Solving problems instinctively

· Analyze abstract ideas

· Manipulate functions

· Perform these operations at a rapid rate

C. Support this intelligence in the classroom by:

· Creating intrinsic and extrinsic order in your classroom

· Present criteria at the beginning of an activity to provide structure

· Offering open-ended problem solving tasks

· Including convergent thinking activities in instruction

· Promoting experiments which test student hypotheses

· Using syllogisms in language

· Encouraging classroom debate

· Incorporating puzzles into learning centers

· Setting short term, achievable goals for the class

· Allowing students to participate in building assessment rubrics

IV. Existential

A. Core Characteristics:

· Collective Consciousness – the capability to see how something relates to the big picture

· Collective Values – the understanding of classical western values of truth, goodness and beauty

· Summative Iteration – the ability to summarize details into a larger understanding

· Intuitive Iteration – a responsiveness to the intangible qualities of being human, be it responding to the arts, philosophical virtues or religious tenets

B. Students with a strong existential intelligence:

· Seek meaningful learning

· Look for connections across the curriculum

· Like to synthesize ideas based on their learning

· Enjoy literature and customs from other cultures

· Have a strong connection with family and friends

· Develop a strong identity with their neighborhood and town

· Express a sense of belonging to a global community

· Like to get involved with social and political causes

· Can have a strong commitment to their health and well-being

· Tend to look at information relative to the context in which it is presented

C. Support this intelligence in the classroom by:

· Offer an overview before starting new instruction

· Consider topics from multiple points of view

· Relate material to global themes and concepts

· Integrate your instruction across the curriculum

· Include the arts in instruction where appropriate

· Discuss how topics are important to the classroom, school, community or world

· Bring in resource people who offer additional perspective on a topic

· Help students learn to cohesively summarize what they have learned

· Allow students to demonstrate learning by applying understanding in new and different contexts

· Have students participate in rubric development for performance-based tasks so that they take ownership for their learning

V. Interpersonal

A. Core Characteristics:

· Collaborative Skills – the capability to jointly complete tasks with others

· Cooperative Attitude – the willingness to offer and accept input

· Leadership – recognition by peers as someone to follow

· Social Influence – an ability to persuade others

· Social Empathy – an awareness and concern for others

· Social Connection – a skill for meaningfully relating to others

B. Students with a strong interpersonal intelligence:

· Seek the support of a group

· Value relationships

· Enjoy collaborative work

· Solicit input from others

· Enjoy sharing about themselves

· Display a "winning" personality

· Tend to be natural leaders

C. Support this intelligence in the classroom by:

· Allow interaction among students during learning tasks

· Include activities where students work in groups

· Provide opportunities for students to select their own groups

· Form cooperative groups wherein each member has an assigned role

· Plan activities where students form teams to be successful

· Allow competition that promotes higher level achievement

· Incorporate structured dramatic activities in which students can role play

· Utilize resource people to invigorate your classroom

· Promote interaction with other classes by participating in learning tasks together

VI. Kinesthetic

A. Core Characteristics:

· Sensory – internalizes information through bodily sensation

· Reflexive – responds quickly and intuitively to physical stimulus

· Tactile – demonstrates well-developed gross and/or fine motor skills

· Concrete – expresses feelings and ideas through body movement

· Coordinated – shows dexterity, agility, flexibility, balance and poise

· Task Orientated – strive to learn by doing

B. Students with a strong kinesthetic intelligence:

· Seek to interact with their environment

· Enjoy hands-on activities

· Can remain focused on a hands-on task for an extended period of time

· May demonstrate strong fine and/or gross motor ability

· Prefer learning centers to seat work

· Seek out other students who are physically gregarious

· Master a principle once they can manipulate materials that demonstrate the concept

· Enjoy group games and active learning tasks

· Are different from children who are hyperactive

C. Support this intelligence in the classroom by:

· Providing hands-on learning centers

· Incorporating creative drama into your instruction

· Including interactive games in reviewing and remediating content

· Offering experiences in movement to rhythm and music

· Engaging students in hands-on science experiments

· Utilizing manipulatives in math instruction

· Allowing opportunities for building and taking apart

· Encouraging students to construct physical representations of concepts

· Keeping students physically moving throughout the school day

VII. Verbal

A. Core Characteristics:

· Ideation – think and remember through internal language

· Functional Literacy - understand the rules and functions of language

· Self-Regulation - analyze one's own use of language

· Adaptation – apply rules of language to new and different contexts

· Oral Expression –explain and express one's self verbally

· Written Expression - explain and express one's self in writing

B. Students with a strong verbal intelligence:

· Appreciate the subtleties of grammar and meaning

· Spell easily

· Enjoy word games

· Understand jokes, puns, and riddles

· Use descriptive language

· Are good storytellers

· Internalize new information through lecture and discussion

· Demonstrate understanding easily through discussion and essay

C. Support this intelligence in the classroom by:

· Exploring new vocabulary

· Learning terms and expressions from other languages

· Encouraging opportunities for public speaking

· Incorporating drama into learning

· Keeping daily journals

· Promoting opportunities for creative writing

· Nurturing oral storytelling

· Including opportunities for expository and narrative writing

· Utilizing quality children's and young adult literature in the classroom

VIII. Intrapersonal

A. Core Characteristics:

· Affective Awareness – the knowledge of one's feelings, attitudes and outlook

· Ethical Awareness – the setting of one's principles and moral priorities

· Self-Regulation – monitoring one's thoughts, actions and behavior

· Metacognition – the awareness of one's thought processes

B. Students with a strong intrapersonal intelligence:

· Are comfortable with themselves

· Express strong like or dislike of particular activities

· Communicate their feelings

· Sense their own strengths and weaknesses

· Show confidence in their abilities

· Set realistic goals

· Make appropriate choices

· Follow their instincts

· Express a sense of justice and fairness

· Relate to others based on their sense of self

C. Support this intelligence in the classroom by:

· Differentiating instruction

· Using analogies in making comparisons

· Providing activities which offer learner choices

· Having students set goals for themselves in the classroom

· Including daily journal writing in your classroom routine

· Providing opportunities for learners to express their feelings on a topic

· Allowing opportunities for student reflection on learning

· Examining current events in terms of social justice

· Including student self-assessment in classroom assessment strategies

· Utilizing interest inventories, questionnaires, interviews and other approaches to measuring student growth

IX. Visual

A. Core Characteristics:

· Spatial Awareness - solving problems using spatial orientation

· Non-sequential Reasoning - thinking in divergent ways

· Visual Acuity - assessment of information based on principals of design and aesthetics

· Imagination - seeing the possibilities before engaging them in the physical world

· Small motor coordination - creating, building, arranging, decorating

B. Students with a strong visual intelligence:

· Seek ocular stimulation

· Respond to color, line and shape

· Can "see" ideas

· Use mental images for mnemonic devices

· Imagine possibilities

· Enjoy expressing themselves through the arts

· Appreciate symmetry and congruence

· Enjoy rearranging their environment

· Can manipulate three-dimensional models in their minds

· Understand by seeing a concept in action

C. Support this intelligence in the classroom by:

· Allowing student movement around the learning environment

· Providing a visually stimulating environment

· Sketching plans before beginning work

· Brainstorming ideas

· Semantic mapping

· Guided imagery exercises

· Working with manipulatives

· Diagramming abstract concepts

· Providing visual assessment performance tasks

· Utilizing visual technologies such as KidPix and PowerPoint