The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Right MIX makes them excel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Right MIX makes them excel

Correspondent

An event for children that assessed their intelligence

A MIX OF FUN AND SKILLS: Participants frolicking at the MIX programme.

BANGALORE: There was an excited buzz and excitement among children at MIX (Multiple Intelligences Explored), an interschool competition hosted by Inventure Academy on Whitefield-Sarjapur Road. The event attracted 250 students of classes 1 to 5 from 10 schools throughout the city.

MIX was an event based on Howard Gardner’s educational theory of multiple intelligences (MI), which recognises that people are smart or intelligent in different ways. The MIs help students to “accentuate” themselves to be an integral part of the global citizenship, to develop inter-personal skills and to be disciplined individuals, which would ensure success in their chosen walks of life.

Animal farm

Hence, each event explored MIs of participants. “Wide wild world” assessed the linguistic, spatial, interpersonal and natural skills of children. Students of Grades I and II were asked to create a farm. Each team was given an animal and the children had to create a suitable enclosure for it and identify what would be its ideal food.

The third and fourth graders were asked to create a zoo while for the fifth graders the task was more challenging. They had to create a habitat for an animal. Their imagination worked overtime as they worked on recreating the climatic conditions, vegetation, terrain, and other animals and birds.

Assessment

The assessment was based on innovation, creativity and relevance of space, material and use of information. The other events too such as “thinkathon”, “josh”, “colours of our world”, “all by myself” and “creative sparks” evaluated various intelligences of participants.

Tarun, Dhruv and Meghana, all students of Mallya Aditi International School, Yelahanka, said they were happy and excited to be part of the competition but were disappointed with their effort in the “wide wild world” event.

“We wasted more colours and our koala bear looked like two dollops of ice-cream,” said Meghana.

Good response

Nooraine Fazal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Inventure Academy, said they were overwhelmed by the response they received from other schools for this event. “MIX is designed by leading educationists and professionals and the event gave an opportunity for children to evoke and showcase their multiple intelligences. It recognised and rewarded their abilities across eight intelligences,” Ms. Nooraine said.

Mallya Aditi International School were the overall champions in Group III while Vidya Shilp Academy in Group II. The hosts emerged victorious in Group I.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka