Intelligence Survey

To be frank, I was not particularly surprised by the data I got from my Multiple Intelligences survey. At the same time, I'm not exactly sure how I am supposed to use this data (how's that for a thesis statement! huzzah).

Since each student is reflecting on his or her own abilities, how can the students know which way they learn best? For example, many of my students say they learn best when I give them direct, deductive notes; however, although they may be able to repeat the skill at hand, I would argue that it is much harder to gain a deep understanding with only this sort of direct lecture. Are the students still correct that they learn best this way?

Looking at the data, I see that my students are visual learners. No surprise there. I knew from their initial clamoring for notes and visuals that this was the case. I had also been forewarned of this by many a teacher corps teacher. On the other hand, they rated their interpersonal intelligence as rather low. That is, they do not think that they learn well from other people. I noticed this particularly in my ninth graders who were and are incredibly averse to group work. Does this mean that I should use group work less or more? Should I be trying to encourage development in the areas where these students feel the weakest or just play to their strengths?

I guess, I just take the data as a reflection of he comfort zone of my students and not much else. It's too small a sample size to make big generalizations, so I think of it more as a way of knowing how and when I can push my students. It gives me a better sense of when my students might feel either comfortable or uncomfortable in the classroom. Therefore, I can use the data to mix and match the comfortable with the uncomfortable and hopefully get a good medium of learning without shutting down.