Intelligence Tests

Personalized IQ report for Erica Porter !
Your age adjusted IQ score is 115 and the average score of all test takers is 100.
Your IQ score is the result of a formula based on the number of questions answered correctly on the test. This score has been further adjusted to account for the differences in capabilities among various age groups.

The IQ test was really odd because in my results it said that spatial reasoning was my strongest area, which is really weird because i have never thought that it was one of my stronger abilities. Maybe the spatial wasn't really all that great, but at least it was higher then any of my other logical reasoning skills. The results also seemed a little detailed for just 30 questions and later on in the explanation it said

Well done! Your performance on the test was well above the population average which means that you have the ability to achieve success in life. Typically, people with scores in this range can see logic in their surroundings and perform very well academically. You like to conceptualize ideas and gather your own information which means that you have the brains to go far. You should be able to handle all academic challenges and if you think of intelligence as an ability to adapt adequately to new situations then you are heading in the right direction.

It just seemed like to much of a detailed explanation. I hate those test where you answer like 2 questions and the seem to have analyzed your entire life and can fit you into a box with a nice little bow. Lots of people who have high IQ scores could be lazy or maybe lack social skills and can't adapt like the results said they could...

I also took the test about Multiple Intelligences and found out that my main intelligence was Naturalistic. I thought that this was really accurate because i love learning about nature and i love learning in nature. My second one was Kinaesthetic which was also very true because i move around a lot and i learn through body movements. In our curriculum class we had to take a multiple intelligences quiz but i liked this one a lot better because there were more questions and i felt that it was a better reflection on the way i actually learn.

Learning Log

What?

In class today we talked about group differences, moslty culture & ethnic differences (eye contact, wait time, personal space, language & dialect) gender, & SES.

So What?

This is really important because all teachers will face these situations we talked about, all people face situations where these group differences are a factor.

Now What?

In the activity where we shared our assumptions about the kids that we saw on the powerpoint i realized how quick i am to judge and how stereotypical my ideas sometimes are. I need to start working now to change the way i think and to try and stop judging people according to stereotypes.

The discussion in class today was very interesting to me and because I don't want to forget what I was thinking i'm going to write down some of what was running through my mind during class. We were talking about competition and how it will vary from group to group, but competition is also a very individualized trait. Within my family we have so many different types of people. My brother turns everything into a competition, and i hate competition, but have learned to deal with it as i started running. I realized that though i was competeing against myself to become better i wasn't as good as i could be if i had a better competitive edge and pushed myself to beat the girl next to me. I have been able to learn to be competitive and i love it, but only in that aspect of my life. I still don't compete in other areas of my life, i hate doing it becuase i guess that don't want to make anybody feel bad. I don't want to win and make somebody else lose. I don't like people looking at me and saying, "she's smart" or "she always wins" I really don't know why, but i have always hated the stereotype i recieve of being smart because i feel that anybody can be just as smart if they would just work as hard as i do. I understand that people are definitely at different levels, but everybody can improve and can be better and to do this we have to create a competition to be better within ourselves instead of having the competition be between others, where somebody is the 'loser' and somebody is the 'winner.' I probably also feel like this because i have definitely been on both ends of the spectum in my running. I have won races and felt so awesome about myself, but then seen the ohter girls crying & i wish that i could have changed things to make everybody happy, I guess it just comes down to that i'm a pleaser and with most competitions, everybody can't win, and i want to be able to have everybody win and to have everybody feel good about themselves. Now that i realized this about myself, i will definitely be a lot more wary of competition that i do with my class and i will try different motivational techniques instead of pitting students against students.

Learning Log

What?

We learned about different types of research that we might encounter or be a part of as teachers.

So What?

It is important to us because we have to decipher things that we see in the media or studies that we are given and decide if the information is true, whether it has the correct conclusion, or maybe if it is biased.

Now What?

I can definitely use what we have learned when i am a teacher. We learned about action research which is a way for a teacher to conduct their own research. We can put our observations together to try and reach a conclusion about maybe the behavior of a student or if our teaching methods are having the desired result. I will also be able to use this information right now because as i continue through this program and through this semester i am going to see educational studies and now i will understand what type of study it is and will be able to make a decision about what I think of it and how relevant it will be for me.

Ninth-Grade Attendance Rates Predict High School Graduation

This little study was very interesting and showed a correlation between the attendance rates in 9th grade and then whether a student would graduate from High School. It didn't include much more information that would be crucial in being able to tell if the data was correct. It just said it was students in the public schools in Chicago. What we would need to know was how many schools & students were involved in the study and did it span more than just one year of students? The study explained how important the 9th grade year is for students and how crucial that transition is. So it would make sense that if students were in class during this crucial period they would be more likely to graduate. From what i read though it seemed like they were trying to apply a conclusion and show a cause and effect, which they can't do because this is only a correlational study, it was interesting though to see the relationship that school attendance had on the graduation. This relationship obviously isn't true for all students, i'm pretty sure that i missed about 15 days (or more) of school each semester in 9th grade and i still graduated. It would be interesting for me to be able to see the spread on students who were absent, but still graduated from high school.

http://www.mdrc.org/area_fact_35.html