![]() We liked to have our students create pocket folders within their notebooks to help with organization. We provided anything else they would need such as glue sticks, scissors, and colored pencils. Students need their interactive notebook and a pencil each day. Interactive notebooks allow students to be prepared for class each and ev ery day. With interactive notebooks, students are now able to focus more on the classroom discussion or activity because they know that the most valuable information and key concepts will be covered on their guided notebook page(s) for the day.ģ. We would be teaching a gripping and captivating lesson (because aren’t they all?) but were constantly interrupted with the question “Do we need to write that down?” We soon realized that our students could not be truly engaged in class if they were constantly struggling with recognizing the important information we wanted them to get. During a typical class period there is a lot of information to digest and it can be quite overwhelming for students. Interactive notebooks focus on the key concepts learned in class. We always encouraged our students to treat their notebook as their own “journal of ideas” or “science diary.” You can also help to encourage this by allowing students to create a unique cover page for their interactive notebook that represents them or the things they’re interested in.Ģ. ![]() For example, some students like to doodle or draw pictures to demonstrate certain concepts, while other students prefer to write phrases or sentences. Interactive notebook pages focus on the key concepts we want them to know, but still allow students to use their own ideas in order to make the learning process more meaningful. Interactive notebooks are personal to each individual student. Interactive notebooks allow students to take ownership of their learning. Here are our top 5 reasons to use interactive notebooks with your students.ġ. However, if we wanted to effectively empower our students and create more independence, we needed a better system in place.Ĭue the interactive notebooks! If you’re new to the classroom or simply want to try a proven system, you definitely need to introduce your students to interactive notebooks. And as many of you already know, change can be hard when it forces you out of your comfort zone. So we were forced to finally admit defeat and knew that something had to change. The fault was on us for failing to implement a clear system which offered the support they really needed. Then, each year the reality of a middle school classroom set in…lost papers…question after question…confused and unprepared students. We simply just told them to stay organized and make sure to keep track of our important assignments and notes that were completed in class (because surely they would know what was important, right?) By giving our students choice, we would ultimately empower them to become more independent in the learning process. In addition to bringing the obvious supplies such as a pencil and paper, we gave our students the option to bring a binder, spiral notebook, folder, or whatever they felt worked best for them. During our first few years as teachers, we thought we would be those “cool” teachers who allowed students to decide what they wanted to bring in order to be prepared for our class. As a husband and wife who both taught science, we obviously bounced a lot of our classroom ideas off of each other. It actually increased the effectiveness of our lessons and helped our classrooms run much more efficiently. We quickly realized that this process did not take as long as we thought. We were extremely hesitant to give them a try because, well…if we’re being completely honest, we felt that all of the cutting and gluing was such a waste of our valuable classroom time. However, we’re the first to admit that it took us quite a while to jump on the interactive notebook bandwagon. ![]() They are a powerful tool to help students compartmentalize important science content through the use of guided notes with pre-made templates. Interactive notebooks are widely used in science classrooms all over the nation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |