Characteristics of Intelligent Behaviors

April DaileyMED/560

April 8, 2013

Intelligent behavior is a characteristic that all teachers should model, teach, and observe developing in students.

Intelligent Behavior

• Students should always be drawing on past knowledge and applying it to new situations.

• Teachers should be preparing students by using real world applications.

• Students should work hard to apply school-learned knowledge to real-life situations.

• Students should develop necessary skills on how to use past knowledge in order to apply it to new situations.

• Students need to practice problem recognition, problem solving, and project-based learning in order to have a greater understanding of the content.

Drawing on Knowledge and Applying it to New Situations

• Example of characteristic: – problem recognition, problem solving, and project-based learning.

• How to support this characteristic in your classroom: – Project-based learning in all subject areas. - Problem solving in math.

Example and Support

• Humor provides positive effects for the brain.• Releases creativity and provides high-level

thinking skills.• Provides anticipation and visual imagery.• Initially, young children and immature

adolescents find humor in all the wrong things such as ethnic or sacrilegious riddles.

• Later, creative young people are very successful on finding humor during the problem solving process.

Finding Humor

• Example of characteristic: – Using jokes or riddles in content area. – Reading comical stories that relate to content. – Making up math word problems that involve something of interest to the students.

• How to support this characteristic in your classroom: – Teachers should choose books that that are entertaining for students. – Use different types of sports in the wording of math word problems. – Use jokes for editing punctuation when teaching students sentence structure.

Example and Support

• Teachers should encourage all students to learn.• Students should be discouraged from saying “I can’t”• Students must be encouraged to demonstrate

intrinsic motivation.• Teachers should offer constructive criticism in a way

that encourages student growth (and doesn’t belittle the student).

• Students must learn to appreciate valuable feedback.

• Students must learn to value their intuition and have the mind set that they can learn if they apply themselves.

Creating, Imagining, and Innovating

• Example of characteristic:– Incorporate assignments in the classroom that values self

expression. – Always use open ended questions where all answers are

valued and to be able to achieve higher-order thinking skills.– Always use encouraging remarks to build student confidence.

• How to support this characteristic in your classroom:– Assign writing assignments that allow the student to express– Always incorporate open ended questions where there is no

wrong answer to promote student involvement.– When a student is wrong, instead of saying “no” be sure to

make mention of something they said that was right or thank them for trying to attempt to answer the question.

Example and Support

• Psychologists believe that listening to others, empathizing others, and understanding points of view is one of the highest forms of intelligent behavior that exist.

• Empathic behavior is nearly the exact opposite of egoism (this is an important skill for dealing with conflict resolution).

• People from various walks of life use listening and understanding skills in class meetings, brainstorming sessions, think tanks, town meetings, advisory councils, board meetings, and legislative bodies.

• Students can share, think, explore ideas, and broadened their perspectives ,simply by listening to the many great ideas and reactions of others.

Listening with Understanding and Empathy

• Example of characteristic:– Using think tanks in the classroom.– Incorporating class meetings into the classroom .– Brainstorming sessions set-up in the classroom to promote

learning.

• How to support this characteristic in your classroom:– Using think tanks for Science for students to refer back to

throughout lesson and have a better understanding of the concept.

– Teachers can conduct class meetings for their students in order to share opinions and ideas with one another.

– Teachers should always remind their students how listening with understanding and empathy will be valued in the future.

Example and Support

• Often times students will develop impulse control, in which they think before acting.

• Impulsive behavior does have a tendency to worsen a conflict.

• Impulsive behavior can inhibit a student ability to effectively problem solve.

• Teachers can work with students to teach them how to think before they shout out an answer. Students can also learn how to wait their turn, raise their hands until they are called upon, and to think the task out completely before beginning.

• Research clearly states that an individual emotional intelligence is a significant prediction of their success in the workplace.

Managing Impulsivity

• Example of characteristic: – Students waiting in line for their turn. – Students raising their hands in order to be called upon. – Students taking the necessary time to think before answering. – Students not acting out when blamed for something or when they get

upset.

• How to support this characteristic in your classroom: – Teachers should get in the routine where they expect students to raise their

hands before they are allowed to answer a question. – Teachers should not encourage shouting out to take place in the classroom. – Teachers should always encourage positive reactions amongst their

students (for example, if a student was to accuse another student of something they did and the student doesn’t act out, then the teacher should compliment that student for thinking before acting out)

– Teachers should be very mindful and show disapproval when a student continues to act out and ignore using the proper thinking skills.

Example and Support

• Be mindful that intelligent people are always in a continuous learning mode.

• Individuals need to be taking in new information each day.

• Individuals should be really to accept new ideas from others when offered.

• Always be eager to learn and find new ways to do things.

Remaining Open to Continuous Learning

• Example of characteristic:– Students need to be encouraged to take in other student

ideas. – Students should work hard to discover new ideas on their

own. – Students should not be afraid to try something new.

• How to support this characteristic in your classroom: – Encourage students to try out ideas that come from their

classmates.– Teachers should attend necessary workshops and

incorporate the skills learned in their classroom. – Teachers should always be willing to try new techniques and

strategies in their classroom to promote learning.

Example and Support

• Kellough, R. D., & Kellough, N. G. (2011). Secondary school teaching: A guide to methods and resources (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Allyn & Bacon.

References