The following is a collection of creative tips for using Interactive Student Notebooks in your classroom.
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A way to improve the Interactive Student Notebook is to send home a parent
evaluation sheet. Students spend about 15 minutes explaining the unit of study
in the book with their parents, and the parents are given a rubric to evaluate
the work and make comments. I was amazed to see the comments from the parents
about the notebooks. The parent evaluation opens up communication and makes
the students more accountable. Parents often write a thank you for involving them.
This is particularly true in the higher grades. Students are at first intimidated
about having to even speak with their parents. However, the notebooks that I
collected after the parent evaluation were more complete than usual.
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For the Interactive Student Notebook, create a "class ISN."
This notebook never leaves the room and has a special place in the room where
it is kept. You set it up exactly the way you want your students to keep their
notebooks so that if a student is new or loses his or her notebook, he or she
has an example to follow. Students also use this notebook to get any
assignments they have missed. Since several of the History Alive! lessons
cannot be duplicated for absent students, such as an Experiential Exercise or
Response Group, I often write alternative assignments in the notebook that can
be completed by reading correlating pages in the textbook. Students will also
need the class notes they missed if they are absent. To address this need, I
assign students "notebook buddies" at the beginning of the school year. When
students are absent, they can get the notes and an explanation of the lesson
from their "buddies."
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Have younger middle school students decorate their Interactive Student Notebooks
by cutting out pictures and creating a collage. This activity will get them
interested in their notebook and create immediate ownership and pride in it.
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Grading Interactive Student Notebooks was very time consuming with 165 students.
So, I selected about eight entries and made a checklist for each student. I lined
them up in alphabetical order, corresponding to my class roster. I asked all students
to turn to the first entry I wanted to see. (I did not grade them closely, just for
completeness.) Students slowly walked in a circle around the room until I had seen
all the students' notebooks. I then asked students to turn to the next entry I wanted
to check for completeness, they walked around again, and repeated the process until
all notebooks and all eight entries were viewed. I had a grade on the notebooks in
about twenty minutes per class, and my students bugged me about when the next notebook
check day would be. They enjoyed it, too.
-- contributed by Dorothy Van Egmond
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If at all possible, conduct interview grading sessions with students when it's time to grade
their Interactive Student Notebooks. Sit down with each student individually (maybe while the
rest of the class is working on something independently) and have them walk you through the unit
being graded. I have them show me three things they were really proud of during the unit, three
things that they could have done better, and then they explain their "extra work.” I've had many
students tell me this makes them take their notebook more seriously because it's a little intimidating
to sit down with the teacher all alone and talk about your work.
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If you have access to a LCD projector you can use the Digital Teacher Resources to project
a page from the Interactive Student Notebook onto your classroom whiteboard. Then ask students
to come up to the front of the class and fill in a section of the page from their own notebook.
This process allows students to share their learning with others in the class and motivates
the kids. Students love to come up and write on the whiteboard, and it allows them to be
the center of learning and sharing.
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