Howard Gardner

The theory of Multiple Intelligences focuses on the concept that every individual has certain strengths with specific types of knowledge. Howard Gardner, the man responsible for creating this philosophy, believes that there are seven main types of "smart" and that people should have opportunities to focus on all of them.The intelligences are pinpointed by what a person likes to do, and in what academic areas he or she thrives.

Workshop model mainly focuses addressed four of the seven intelligences in the classrooms:

• Verbal/ Linguistic
• Logical/ Mathematic
• Inter Personal
• Intra Personal

The Verbal/Linguistic intelligence is basically exceeding in reading, writing and understanding/speaking complex vocabulary. Individuals who understand literature exceptionally well, according to Gardner's theory, should be taught in a way that focuses on reading, hearing and seeing words, speaking, writing, discussing and debating. These all take place throughout Language Arts classes. When Workshop Model is implemented during Language Arts, the teacher detects the areas where students might need to improve. By triggering the child to further understand their strength, the instructor might in some way aggregate the topics he/she struggles with, thus exposing a possible growth of intelligence where there was only the mastery of two or three before.

In Math the Logical/ Mathematic intelligence is enforced. Here the math teacher ensures every one of his/her students with mathematical knowledge, such as problem solving strategies, pattern recognition and logical reasoning. In every one of the math classes students, by interacting with their peers while having to solve problems, recognize patterns and logically reason. They are offered the opportunity to explore parts of mathematics in a way that makes it fun.

Inter Personal intelligence is being able to understanding people, leading, organizing, communicating, resolving conflicts and selling. There are many subjects where this type of intelligence is explored. Social Studies is a subject where inter personal intelligence is constantly used. As the class progresses, its students get absorbed in the fascinating facts about our past societies. Debates arise in situations where the students dive into the possibilities of how a certain past issue could have been solved. This approach towards Social Studies lets the pupils truly understand the meaningfulness of our past and present and how it will all affect our future.

During the Work Time that takes place in all classes, students are encouraged to work with their peers. It is in this way that the Intra Personal intelligence is exercised. Group discussions and other forms of cooperative learning, during which accountable talk takes place, help students develop this form of intelligence. Students learn how to deal with others that disagree with them or present alternative viewpoints.

-----------------

Benjamin Bloom

In 1956, there was a psychologist group that was headed by none other than Benjamin Bloom. This assembly of intellectual individuals observed and noted that in 95% of tests required students to utilize the lowest level of thinking; to recall information. In order to provoke higher levels of thinking, Bloom compiled a list of 6 levels of mind usage. These levels ranged from low levels of thinking; such as memorizing, to complex and intricate levels such as evaluating. Workshop Model takes advantage of these 6 levels of thinking in order to aid students in reaching their potential intelligence level.

One of the highest levels of thinking is known as Analysis. When students analyze writing pieces and images, they may be able to identify and/or recognize patterns, specific types of organization and hidden word meanings. Workshop Model has assisted students in improving their ability to apply analysis into specific subject areas such as in math. Workshop model applies analysis to lessons when teachers may be conferencing and/or explaining the work to the students. Instead of simply stating what the student should do, the teacher allows the student to grasp the opportunity to observe on their own and discover what is expected to be done. When solving word problems, students may need to infer what operations need to be performed in order to successfully complete the problem correctly. Words from the word problem can be pulled out and interpreted by students. The words can tell them either to add, subtract, multiply or divide. Analysis helps the students further comprehend the correct way of solving the problem presented in front of them.

Synthesis is another high level of thinking. Synthesizing requires students to build new ideas from previous knowledge, generalize from given facts, relate knowledge from other subject areas into that one subject, and to predict and draw conclusions. Synthesizing aids many teachers, such as English-Language Arts, in providing their students with a better range of strategies to use in their work and writing. Synthesizing allows students to have accountable talk amongst each other. They can use connections when reading passages and they can also make predictions. An excellent use for synthesizing is in an author study. When reading a variety of work produced by one author, it allows the students to predict and infer what might happen next in the story based the author's style of writing. Patterns and themes in a particular author's writing can aid the students in finding strong characters and help them develop a liking or disliking towards the author's style.

The highest, most thought-provoking level of thinking is known as Evaluation. Evaluation can help students talk accountably and help them differentiate between two ideas. Evaluation includes things such as comparing and contrasting two different ideas, assessing the values of theories and presentations, building an opinion based on reasonable facts and arguments, verifying the value of evidence, and recognizing subjectivity. Evaluation can be extremely useful in a Science class. Students are able to evaluate the objects given in the experiment and based on their observations, students are able to hypothesize (make educated guesses) based on what they were able to obtain as fact. Because each student has a different perceptive, students may disagree on certain facts. The students are then able to support their arguments with the information obtained during their observation. Their peers may also be able to analyze all of the information, hence creating an opinion also. This creates a classroom abundant in theories and opinions. Using evaluation in Workshop Model allows the students and even the teacher to converse accountably about the subject.