Experts say. . .

“The MIDAS™ can be a useful tool for children to gain insight into how they best learn. I hope that Dr. Shearer’s book will find itself into the hands of many teachers across the country who are looking for new ways to approach curriculum and exciting ways to motivate children to learn.”

Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., author, Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom.

“Assessment of Multiple Intelligences is difficult at best. Branton Shearer’s MIDAS™ materials succeed further than anything else available at providing insight and understanding of a profile of an individual’s intelligences.”

Bruce Campbell, author of Multiple Intelligences and Student Achievement.

“I can attest to the fact that the MIDAS™ battery is by far the most conceptually and psychometrically sound MI-based assessment tool available to educators today.”

Jonathan Plucker, Ph.D.

“People are curious and open to new insights about how one’s intelligence can be identified across a wide spectrum of abilities. This is exactly where MIDAS™ fills a significant gap between quantitative evaluation and qualitative assessment. The use of MIDAS™ as a diagnostic tool by qualified persons provides a bridge of understanding….Society will benefit when we recognize the rich diversity of abilities in our students and offers them education which builds on each student’s strengths.” 

Patricia J. Bolanos, Principal, Key Learning Community.

 

 Educators say . . .

“I highly recommend utilizing The MIDAS™ both with staff members and your students. The knowledge you will gain is immeasurable!”

Heather Terrill, Principal, Savanna Oaks Elementary.

 

“Thank you again for an outstanding and more in depth look at the Multiple Intelligences theory. I enjoyed your class and also the evaluation of the MIDAS™ survey. I hope to use the MI information I learned from you in my future elementary education endeavors and also with the teacher and student activities I coordinate at NASA Glenn.”

Linda Little, Office of Educational Programs, NASA

 

“We are thoroughly enjoying the results of our MIDAS™ assessment and are very grateful for the activities, worksheets, and supplemental materials that you have created. This is a wonderful measure that has been extremely useful in working with students with emotional needs who need a means to focus on their strengths rather than their perceived weaknesses. Thank you again for your work in this area and we hope to continue sharing your efforts with more students in the future.”   

Crystal Harms, Director of Special Projects, Arcadia University

 

Teachers say . . .

 

“Personally The MIDAS™ was very informative being able to find out more about myself and my students. This has been a help since my school is MI. I thought I was using MI in my teaching and now I know that I am. I also learned more about all the different intelligences so that I can continue to expand my lessons.”

“I felt that my own personal MIDAS™ assessment was important because by identifying my strengths and weaknesses, I can improve my weaknesses to become a better teacher. I can understand that I have avoided weak areas in the past and this assessment makes me aware of that. A valuable contribution is that I discovered that different intelligences allow me to incorporate new teaching methods that I would never have considered before. As an example, kinesthetics is a great way to teach a new idea in a setting where movement might not have been used previously.”

“I thought this class was excellent in that it didn’t just talk about MI, but demonstrated MI! It was refreshing and interesting. Personally, I see myself as more aware of my strengths & more nurturing of my weaknesses. I am more conscious of my movements & more perceptive of music and nature (my weaknesses). Professionally, see myself relating what I’ve learned to the interventionists & teacher with whom I work. I can now show them that it works! I think this class was great no complaints!”

“Several aspects of this workshop were extremely meaningful to me. The opportunity to focus my project on a topic of importance to me. I can apply The MIDAS™ to my daughter as a parent was an unexpected bonus for me.”

“I feel this assessment was personally meaningful to me. I know now the eight different intelligences and how to utilize each one effectively in my classroom. I learned that everyone does not learn in the same way. I will be more aware of utilizing MI in my classroom. It will be interesting to give the MIDAS™ to the class and chart their progress throughout the year!”

“It was valuable to take The MIDAS™ and receive information about my strengths and weaknesses.”

“Taking the MIDAS™ has been valuable to know why and how I react or succeed in the categories we’ve studied. I will use all the strategies in my classroom and feel that will only foster growth for myself and the children. I may soon take a new position in supervision to pilot a gifted education program. The MIDAS™ knowledge will give me more and varied tools and ideas to support the students and teachers.”

“Receiving my MIDAS™ assessment has been personally meaningful…I intend to incorporate my new awareness of multiple intelligences in my teaching…this has been the most rewarding workshop I’ve ever taken!”

“One of the assignments for the students in the Career Course is to write a letter to their classmates as if they were 20 years into the future. It’s composed of what they are now doing and how they got there. They have to integrate the activities and assignments of class and how the class has helped them in their career progress. Below is a portion of one of the letters from my class:

The career interest surveys that we took during class showed me that Nursing was the right job for me. There was one person whom I will always remember that motivated me. It was the guest speaker we had named Branton Shearer, Ph.D. He talked about how you can do whatever you set your mind to. Hearing his story about his life and the obstacles he crossed along his w really motivated me to stay in Nursing School. I graduated with my Bachelors of Science degree in Nursing from Kent State University in May of 2005.”

Don Snyder, Career Services Center, Kent State University

 

College Students say . . .

“It hit the nail right on the head. It strengthened what I was thinking about majoring in.”

“Midas brought out hidden qualities, that I didn’t know about. It appears that these qualities are really obvious in my self assessment. I would like to explore more about my Leadership abilities. I am looking for a career in the corporate world and I’m finding that I am compatible with that field.”

“The MIDAS™ Profile made me more aware of other careers that I might possibly pursue. I started thinking about what I really want to do and what I want more info about.”

 

“It is helpful to have the results on paper. I have them in front of me to refer to. This test has confirmed what I already knew about my abilities. I knew that I wanted to do some thing that had to do with math, problem-solving, science and people. Now I just need help in narrowing down what it is exactly that I would like to do. I’ve thought about pre-med.”

“This has been most useful because I was able to see some of the areas I am interested in learning more about. I now have more areas to explore that I did not know were there.”

“This has helped me to understand myself and my career options.”

“The Midas was very interesting because of the questions which were realistic and the results surprised me just a little bit. Even though I kind of enjoy working with numbers I was surprised that my calculations scores were so high. The Midas helped me see what things I either enjoy or am good at — things that I never realized before. This test has been helpful to me in many ways.”

 

“I didn’t really think that I had very much artistic ability. I was kind of thinking about engineering and the Midas showed that this occupation fits my strengths.”

 

High School Students say . . .

 

“Well, I think that I know how to study better and how to use my skills.”

 

“It was really neat to learn about my strengths and weaknesses and see what is out there that I can enroll in.”

 

“The most interesting thing to me was just learning about ourselves. I found out a lot about myself during this week, stuff I never knew.”

 

“Because it will help to put you in the right direction for life. It makes a huge difference. It had a very big impact on me and gave me a better sense of what I want to be when I grow up.”

 

“Say you’re ‘dumb’ in math you can still know you can be smart at 1 or 7 other categories!”

 

“So we can figure out who we are and keep us on the right track to meeting our goals.”

“Because it will help you out in your life no matter what you do. It is always good to know those kind of things so that you can use them or teach them to other people. When I learned about these new intelligences I realized that you need all of them to think in a certain way or to do certain things.”

 

“I think the most interesting thing in this unit was how you can put things to music and they just sort stick in your mind.”

 

“The most interesting part was when we had to find a way to remember the 8 intelligences and doing a skit to help the class understand.”

 

“I learned what my strengths are. I learned what careers are related to my strengths too, so now I have an idea of what I want to do in the future.”

 

“When I got my results back and I saw my strengths and weaknesses.”

 

“Finding out some strength that I didn’t know I had.”