With the help of the information on the NAEA page https://naea.digication.com/ericagloveredwards/Differentiation_of_Instruction, and Art Educator Erica Glover-Edwards, the following is beneficial information regarding Multiple Intelligences in the Art Classroom.

 

"An art education program that uses Howard Gardener’s Multiple Intelligence as a base for creating varied learning experiences can help all students achieve in art and across the entire school curricula. We all have preferred learning styles and appealing to as many as possible can only strengthen our knowledge sets both in art and across the curricula."

 

• Art will naturally appeal to students excelling in visual/spatial intelligence. They are visual thinkers and tend to enjoy viewing art and perform well at creating visually stimulating artworks.  The art teacher may provide activities including: gallery visits (actual and/or virtual), art prints in the classroom, and observational art activities. 

• Verbal/linguistic learners can be stimulated in the art room through visual story-telling, narration, class discussion, critique, and writing about art.  Having the students maintain journal/sketchbooks, holding critiques of art prints and class work, and using art prints to have students explain what they see are things that can be done to involve these students.

• Students that are primarily logical/mathematical thinkers can be engaged with lessons that offer opportunities to see and create patterns, measure, identify and create visual weight and balance, work with geometric shapes, and use mathematical drawing and building like architectural design. 

• In the art classroom, Bodily/kinesthetic learners have opportunity to develop and use their hand-eye and hand-mind coordination through all art-making activities, experience hands-on creating, act out art works, and express emotions through color and symbolism. 

• Students favoring musical/rhythmic learning will have great success with creating art to music and identifying and using visual rhythm in art. 

• Interpersonally intelligent students will be given the chance to identify and discuss multiple perspectives, understandings, emotions, intentions, and motivations in the arts; and work in group settings developing art skills and relate the arts to other subject matter. 

• Students that are intrapersonal thinkers can be engaged through art-making lessons that allow them to use their knowledge of themselves, their hopes and dreams, and their strengths and weaknesses to create artworks that are self-reflective and deeply personal. 

• And students with an inclination for naturalist intelligence will have opportunity to explore the world around them through environmental art activities, including: collecting and organizing objects from their own environments, outdoor art-making sessions, and observational activities.  (Armstrong, 1994)

 

The key to achieving differentiation of instruction in the classroom is to develop a curriculum that considers the diversity, needs, and preferences of ALL students; allow for self-guided learning experiences; and provide options for content, process, or products. (Heise, 2007)

 

References

Armstrong, T. (1994). Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, 2nd Ed. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

 

Heise, D. (2007). Differentiation In The Artroom. NAEA Advisory , 2.

 

Tomlinson, C. A. (2000). Differentiation of Instruction in the Elementary Grades. ERIC DIGEST , 2.