Interactive Notebooks in the Science Classroom

1. Interactive Notebooksin the Science Classroom

2. Ice Breaker • Where’s My Trio? • You have two minutes to find the other two parts of your trio. • Take one minute to create a 15 second presentation of your trio. It must include: • The name of the trio • A slogan/jingle

3. Session Objectives: • Inspire students to become academically organized by giving them clear guidelines for creating high quality notebooks. • Create engaging notebook assignments • Create a sample notebook • Assess completed student notebooks • Encourage students to take pride in their notebooks so they will refer to them and seldom lose them.

4. PREVIEW • Briefly respond to the following questions: • What kind of notebooks do you use in your classroom? • What are the challenges of using a notebook with your students? • Share your responses with your TRIO.

5. What is an Interactive Notebook? • A portfolio of individual learning for the course • A chronological record of student work • A method for helping students develop organizational skills

6. Why use an Interactive Notebook? • Teach students to become creative, independent, “graphic thinkers” and writers. • Provide opportunities for students to process information. • Teach students organizational skills. • Increase student responsibility for learning • Provide cohesion and structure to a unit of instruction.

7. Components of the ISN • Covers • Essential Questions • Preview Assignments • Graphically Organized Reading Notes • Process Assignments

8. Elements of an Effective Notebook-Covers

9. Essential Questions • Have no simple “right” answer • Provoke and sustain student inquiry • Address the conceptual or philosophical foundations of a discipline • Raise other important questions • Naturally and appropriately recur • Stimulate vital, ongoing rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons.

10. Essential Questions • The new textbook adoption includes essential questions for each chapter. • These questions can be incorporated in the ISN.

11. Essential Questions • Have students copy the essential question in their ISN. • Have students respond and refer to the essential question after EACH lesson. • Have students use their responses to draft an essay response to the essential question.

12. Elements of an Effective Notebook • Student Guidelines • Clearly outline expectations • Grading Rubric

13. Elements of an Effective Notebook • Preview Assignments • Graphically Organized Notes • Process Assignments

14. Preview Assignments • A short engaging task that foreshadows upcoming content. • Predict the lesson topic • Draw a parallel between key concepts and students’ lives • Goal: spark interest, activate prior knowledge, tap a wide range of intelligences, and prepare students to tackle new concepts

15. Analogies Reviewing Personal anecdotes Predicting Provocative propositions Respond to slide images Respond to music “What if” sketches Annotated slides Illustrated Outlines Venn or Y diagrams Matrices Illustrated timelines Mind Notes Spoke diagrams Examples of PreviewsChoose 3 to use in your classroom

16. Preview Assignments • Which three preview assignments would you use in your classroom? Justify your answer.

17. Graphically Organized Notes • Graphically organized notes inspire students to think carefully about what they have read and/or learned • Students record main ideas in a form that engages both their visual and linguistic intelligences. • Graphic organizers help students see the underlying logic and interconnections among concepts.

18. Graphically Organized Reading Notes • How could this style of note taking benefit your students?

19. Process Assignments • Lesson wrap up activities that challenge students to synthesize and apply the information they have learned. • Complete tasks that incorporate multiple intelligences & higher order thinking skills • Students must ACTIVELY do something with information if they are to internalize it. • Step beyond low-level regurgitation of facts & details

20. Advertisements Historical Journals Book or compact disk covers Posters Facial Expressions Mosaics Sensory Figures Report Cards Postcards Political Cartoons Comic strips Pictowords Metaphorical representations Illustrated dictionary entries Examples of Process assignments

21. Organizing Your Notebook • Decorate your notebook cover • Number each page of the notebook • Include Organization Pages • Create and maintain a table of contents • List titles and dates daily • Determine if you will use Left-Side/Right-Side or every page format

22. Left Side-Student Begin class with a Preview assignment Process assignments Include homework Right Side-Teacher Includes class, discussion, or graphically organized notes Handouts with new information Left & Right Format

23. Every Page Format • Always use a right-side page for Unit Covers • Always use a left side for Preview Assignments • Let student notes and process assignments flow between left and right side pages.

24. Time-Outs • Time Out/Extra Credit- page on left hand side (one page at the end of a unit) • Paste a news article about a current event, political cartoon, picture or student creative writing in the notebook • Complete a movie review (related to a social studies content topic) • Write a paragraph explaining how the item connects to the history they are learning

25. What materials are needed for the notebook? • Spiral notebook- one for each semester • spiral bound • College ruled • 100 sheets • 8 ½” X 11” • white paper • plastic covers are more durable • Highlighters • Colored pens or pencils • Gluestick or tape

26. How often do you grade the notebooks? • Monitor daily as students set up their notebooks and complete the process • Use peer checks as students complete each step of the notebook set up • Evaluate notebooks using a rubric • Stamp Process assignmentsfor completion and credit daily

27. Grading the Interactive Notebook • Collect and check after the first two weeks of school • Check at the end of each unit • Self checks and peer checks can be done later in the year • Grade notebooks on thoroughness, quality, organization and visual appeal

28. How do you help absent students? • Keep an updated master notebook of assignments and due dates • Allow students to check with a classmate for missed assignments • Make it the student’s responsibility to make up missed assignments • “Green Meanie” filing system • Notebook Hospital Time to operate on sick notebooks

29. Lost Notebooks? • Allow students to make up notebook assignments for the unit you are currently studying • Remind students that the notebook is their “Lifeline” for class

30. Teachers and students are more organized. Teachers and students are literally on the same page daily. Notebooks are great for Review and Reinforcement of concepts. Parents no longer have to ask “What did you do in class today?” Requiring students to bring their notebooks daily cuts down on interruptions and whining. Benefits of Interactive Notebooks

31. Benefits of Interactive Notebooks Parent-Teacher conferences are easier!

32. Tips for implementing Interactive Notebooks • Draw an open notebook on the board and label title, date, page #’ s, Preview and Process. • Inform students on which page to put worksheets • Model and reinforce notebook criteria by monitoring daily as students set up their notebooks

33. Tips continued • Use master notebook as an example • Set up exceptional notebooks at the front of the room and let students complete a Gallery Walk to collect ideas from these model notebooks • Gather used magazines from the Media Center or Doctor’s Office that students can use as a source for images.

34. Instructional Checklist • Uses preview assignments • Graphically organized notes • Process assignments • Variety of notebook assignments • Organizing tools for notebooks (page numbers, titles, dates, table of content etc.) • Provide examples to inspire student creativity • Inform students of evaluation criteria in ADVANCE

35. Process Assignment • Complete a 3-2-1 Chart. • List 3 things you have learned. • List 2 Questions you have learned. • List 1 Opinion you have about interactive notebooks.

36. Available Support • See Mrs. Grant, Mr. Tabor, Mrs. McGue, or Ms. Lyons for assistance with your notebook.