Multiple Intelligence Inventory

Who am I? What is it that I do well? How do I best express myself? How do I learn well? These questions are ones many people come across at some point in their lives. Whether it be continuously on their mind or just a passing thought, there is still the desire for it to be answered. Yesterday, I sat down at my computer to take the Multiple Intelligence Inventory(MII) for a class in which I am currently enrolled. However, I also took it in order to gain a bit more of a foundation to those questions. The test has you answer 80 questions and then informs you out of 8 categories: linguistics, mathematics, visual/spatial, body/kinesthetic, naturalistic, music, interpersonal, and intrapersonal,where you are strongest. My score informed me that I was strongest in interpersonal with 36 and weakest in mathematics with 24. The fact that my highest score was interpersonal comes as no surprise to me. I am someone who loves to meet new people, enjoys building relationships with people, and values her family and friends. My weakest score of mathematics is a little more surprising yet still makes sense. I understand math and can do it fairly well however a part of math is experiments and thinking with numbers. All through K-12 schooling and to this day, experiments were something I didn't not really enjoy and I am much more of a learner through explanation with words instead of numbers. The next two highest on my list were music and kinesthetic. Music I believe suits me; however, the kinesthetic category took me a while to adjust too. I never really thought of myself as someone who likes to be moving around or learns better through touching things. Also the fact that my second to last score was visual seemed unusual to me. I thought that I was a very visual person and that it was my best form of learning. I think the MII helped me realize that I may have a better way to obtain information than what I have been doing most, if not all, of my life. I believe that by taking the MII, I may be able to experiment with learning in different ways and therefore be able to recall information longer, as well as use that information in my life outside of the classroom. Also, the MII can help my future teaching by making me aware of the different categories of learning that my students will have. I will need to make sure I am constantly teaching in a way that not only suits how I learn but how each of my students learn. This, I am sure, will be a difficult task to achieve while teaching 25 students at a time. However it will definitely be beneficial to the students if I can even mildly succeed at it. So the answer to the questions we ask ourselves, Who am I? What do I do well? How do I learn best?, we still do not have the exact answers to and honestly we never will. However, by taking the MII, I now have come a little closer to figuring out the mystery of me.