Interactive Notebooks An Effective Teaching Strategy Designed to Leave No Children Behind William Caten Keep clear learning goals in mind

Instructional Strategies that Facilitate Successful Learning Must … Supply students with STRUCTURE and ORGANIZATION Encourage student COMMUNICATION and COLLABORATION Provide students with VISUAL and HANDS-ON learning experiences

If research shows that instruction increases learning, why aren’t more students attaining learning goals? A general lack of solid philosophical foundation for incorporating innovations. A lack of public support for change. The typical instructional innovation has a life span of three to five years, with new innovations crowding out older ones. Teachers often are NOT clear in their own minds what the learning goals are and therefore do NOT communicate them well to students.

Rule of 9 For mastery a student needs nine times to practice. 3 – teacher models 3 – students work in collaboration 3 – students work on his/her own, two of these in a timed situation, since pacing is critical Silver, H. and Strong, R.

Effective Teaching Strategies (with disenfranchised groups of students) MORE Student Collaboration Active Learning Higher Order Thinking Reading and Writing for Understanding Revisiting Topics (Spiraling) Daniels & Bizar, Methods that Matter, 1998

Research and Theory Many psychologists recognize the “dual-coding” theory of information storage (Paivio, 1969, 1971, 1990) –The theory holds that knowledge is stored in two forms: Linguistic form – actual statements in long-term memory Imagery form – mental pictures or even physical sensations, such as smell, taste, touch, kinesthetic association, and sound (Richardson, 1983) –Marzano’s research refers to the imagery mode of representation as nonlinguistic representation. –The more students use both systems of representation, the better students are able to think about and recall knowledge.

Nonlinguistic Representations Approaches to this strategy in the classroom: –Graphic organizers, –Pictographic representations, –Mental images, –Physical models, and –Kinesthetic representations.

A brief look at Marzano’s Instructional Strategies Summarizing and Note Taking Similarities and Differences Nonlinguistic Representations Generating and Testing Hypotheses

Reading Comprehension in the Content Area The Farm Fresh Theorem

What are traits of effective readers?

Helping Middle & HS Readers and NMS Dept. Rdg. Plan

Reading strategies Writing Strategies Marzano Strategies Note-Taking Techniques

Instructional Strategy:

What is the Interactive Notebook? A parking lot for all the “stuff” we give students A designated place for students to record interpretations in their own way A communication tool between student and teacher

Why Use the Interactive Notebook? It is a “collection” (portfolio) of learning experiences that can be revisited over the course of a school year (*and beyond). It teaches students how to think. Reading strategies can be taught explicitly within the various disciplines. Writing to learn is a built-in assessment/instructional tool. (What did they learn? The notebook provides the evidence.) It promotes nonlinguistic representations as an important tool for learning. Practice makes perfect (rehearsal opportunities). It builds organizational and study skills (cooperative learning, independent learning, and homework). Students are going to draw or doodle anyway.

Why Use the Interactive Notebook? Organization!

Adapted from the NMS Instructional Leadership Team Retreat, 7/9/03 Note-Taking in the Interactive Notebook Teachers… Collaborate & generate one set of common notes Copy notes for students & use as tool Periodically score notebooks using a common notebook rubric Students… Glue notes on right side of notebook Using colored pencils practice note-taking & reading skills –Circle new vocabulary –Highlight/shade key ideas –Strike out extraneous information –Box new ideas in contrasting colors

Note-Taking in the Interactive Notebook (cont’d.) Students… Use left side of notebook to make nonlinguistic representations of content/topic studied in class

Table of Content Samples

Interactive Notebook Materials Spiral Notebooks or 3 Prong Pocket Folders Glue Scissors Rulers Crayons, Colored Pencils or Markers Highlighters

How do you present the notes? Teacher generated reading passages or notes Cloze Passages Graphic Organizers

Teacher resources for notes! Mathematics Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework Textbooks and SOL Coach Books Algebra To Go, Math On Call and Math On Hand Math Smart Junior, Math You’ll Understand by Marcia Lerner Online Math Websites – for example: Math Forum and Glencoe.com, etc Your Peers!

What could you do? Provide students with notes or vocabulary to be pasted on the right side of the notebook and instruct students to draw pictures of vocabulary or notes on the left side of the notebook Provide students with notes detailing more than one strategy to be pasted on right side of the notebook and on the left side divide the page into two columns. Students then may complete practice problems using both strategies.

What could you do? Student notes could include blanks or spaces for missing information and as the class progresses the student fills in the missing information (cloze passages) Provide students with practice problems to solve on the right side of the notebook and then write about the steps on the left side.

What could you do? Provide students with blank graphic organizers to complete Permit students to construct their own graphic organizer based on notes, group discussion or activity Notes on right side of notebook and examples and non-examples on the left side.

What could you do? Instruct students to paste reading passages or notes on the right side of notebook and summarize (rewrite in own words) important information on left side. Have students list similarities and differences on left side of notebook after pasting notes on right side. Students could also write or draw about similarities and differences. Drawing may include Venn diagrams.

Management Strategies Notebooks Remain in the classroom Student – check out Students responsible for bringing notebooks to class on daily basis

References Many of the frames in this presentation were adapted from a master slide presentation provided by Dr. Dan Mulligan, former Director of Assessment and SOL Accountability, Chesapeake Public Schools, to the Northside Middle School Instructional Leadership Team for in-building staff development.

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