Chapter 10: MI and Assessment

The chapter on Multiple Intelligences and Assessment had a great many suggestions for assessing students. The chapter started off with a good laundry list of observational assessment that we can use. Observational assessment is good because it’s almost always authentic. Observation forces the assessor to look at students’ abilities and works, strengthening impressions of multiple intelligences. One idea that I was somewhat surprised with but really liked was informally administering a standardized test. In addition to relaxing students and keeping them from freaking out (which is a normal response to standardized tests), the test would give students the chance to see what standardized tests look like. Familiarity with standardized tests could help prepare them for taking high-risk tests like the SAT (assuming, probably rightfully, that College Board doesn’t make sweeping changes recognizing the validity of Multiple Intelligence Theory). On that note, the large tables comparing Standardized Testing to Authentic Assessment made the distinction even clearer than it has ever been.
The section on assessing in eight ways, suggesting for each intelligence various ways to let students show their knowledge about specific topics. I really liked the large eight-by-eight grid showing assessment contexts for assessment by activity. If I can overlap certain activities, it will certainly help my own classroom. The MI Portfolio will also be really useful, providing I can use it correctly. I think I should be able to.