Interactive Notebook
Description
What is it?
Interactive Notebooks (INB) are tools that allow students to capture thinking, process new information, and anchor ongoing learning. Interactive notebooks allow students to interact with content, not just consume it.
Why use it?
With Interactive Notebooks (INBs), students take greater responsibility for their learning as they more clearly connect the information from classroom notes, reading assignments, or laboratory work with the products from and application of the information. Providing students with a variety of options for processing their learning also accommodates student diversity and choice, as well as aids in retention of academic information. Interactive Notebooks can also serve as a means of ongoing communication between students and teacher, and between the teacher and parents or guardians.
Checklist:
• Evaluate the purpose of each lesson, strategy, chunk of instruction, or investigation and how the INB note-taking and processing will lead to an application of the learning in students’ continued content work.
• Formulate and communicate the types of information that can be used as input (right-side information) and the types of processing strategies that can be used as output (left-side processing opportunities). Interactive Notebooks are a learning structure that helps students organize and archive their learning, and serves as evidence of learning and a reference tool. 23
• Define notebook expectations while considering scaffolding support or increasing rigor based on grade level or developmental level of student population groups.
• Determine how collaboration can occur while students develop the sections of the Interactive Notebook (notes, questions, summary, reflection, charts/tables, processing strategies).
• Create a consistent plan and schedule to allow for assessment of notebooks, including students’ self-reflection and peer evaluation.
Quick Tips
Interactive Notebooks are a great place for students to practice their learning and receive peer feedback. Make sure you are not only using your notebooks as a filing system. Consider including intentional time for students to return to notes and process their learning with close reading and higher-level questioning strategies.
Taking time to let students' personalize their INBs as well as making it a crucial part of daily learning can increase ownership in the INB process.
Students can drive their own processing, reflecting and studying better if they keep their INB with them rather than leaving it in their teachers room. Consider how you could work up to this goal with your students!
Tip: Students rarely lose their cell phones. How can you make their INB as vital of a tool to them as their cell phone is? Who is responding to them in their INB? What purposes does it play in their life outside of your classroom?
Did you know?
Interactive notebooks are a great tool to combine many strategies found in the Instructional Playbook! Think about how you can integrate some of the other strategies in the Playbook like, Quick Writes, Talk Read Talk Write (TRTW), and Sage and Scribe.
Integrating sentence stems is a great way to scaffold learning for students who are not comfortable taking notes on their own!
INBs are a great way to ensure all phases of the Focused Note-Taking process are being utilized.