Professional Development

          On Tuesday March 24th, Dr. Erick Sierra delivered a lecture titled "With Eyes to See: Toward a Multi-Ethnic/Multi-Intelligence Pedagogy". This took place in the Ozinga Chapel Lobby. I was excited to go to this lecture since it was aimed toward education majors. Once I arrived at the lecture, I received a handout talking about Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. This caught my eye because we have discussed this theorist and his idea of multiple intelligences in Education 209.
         Dr. Sierra did an amazing job in engaging the audience with the story of his past in New York. He talked about how he learned about one of his intelligences, the intelligence of verbal-linguistic. This intelligence is the ability to use words/language skillfully, like writers and public speakers. Dr. Sierra then showed a video about a young man named Hugo. Hugo is a high school student being raised by his grandmother while taking care of his two younger sisters. Hugo fights in the streets but when he is at home, he is like a father to his sisters. Dr. Sierra asked the audience to identify what intelligences did Hugo possess. Everyone gave different responses since each person sees Hugo differently. I found this exercise to be beneficial but for some of the audience members, the length of the video made people lose interest. Overall, I enjoyed Dr. Sierra's lecture and found it beneficial to education majors and members of the faculty.
       I have learned from this Professional Development that every person has different intelligences that follow Howard Gardner. I can apply this to both my field experience and my future classroom by understanding the different intelligences and creating activities that can cover the intelligences of my students. Being a future Physical Education teacher, I may experience students of visual-spatial and bodily-kinesthetic mostly. Different ways that I can do this is by providing handouts for my students and demonstrating lessons that are to be  taught, e.g. how to shoot a basketball. This lecture has impacted the way that I would like to teach and how I will observe my classes.