CASE #1 - DIGITAL STUDENT NOTEBOOKS IN SCIENCE CLASS

1. Reference Information

Ferguson, L. (2021, May 28). Using digital notebooks to showcase student learning. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/digital-science-notebooks-showcase-student-learning

Fulton, L., & Paek, S. (2017). Learning to use digital science notebooks: A teacher’s perceptions and classroom use. Scientific Educator, 26(1), 11–20. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1272516.pdf

Science Portfolios. (n.d.). NSTA. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.nsta.org/science-teacher/science-teacher-mayjune-2021/science-portfolios

Sinai, K. (2021, May 25). How I Use Digital Science Notebooks to Maximize Student Learning. Science by Sinai. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://sciencebysinai.com/how-i-use-digital-science-notebooks/

Willoughby, C. (2019, July 22). Recording Science in the Digital Era: From Paper to Electronic Notebooks and Other Digital Tools (1st ed.). Royal Society of Chemistry.

2. A Brief Description of the Case

Science notebooks have been used in classrooms for decades. They are used to collect data, make predictions, take notes, reflect, and present information. This case looks at digitizing science notebooks and taking the entire year/semester to build a more tech savvy science notebook. This project is intended for a high school science class, but later we will discuss how it could be used in many subjects at many levels.

3. The Purpose of The Innovation

This innovation has a couple different purposes. It is for both organization of student ideas and student work, as well as the presentation of ideas and things that students have learned. The students will learn how to organize their thoughts and keep a record of scientific thinking throughout the year. This is an important skill in science. Finally, the students will be creating something that the teacher can use to assess their understanding of the content in class.

4. The Technology and Resources Involved

There are multiple different programs and applications that can be used for digital student notebooks. Students can keep their information in documents such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. They can use slideshow presentation programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides. Finally, students can use a variety of other notetaking apps like Microsoft OneNote, Notability, Apple Notes, or Evernote. When choosing with technology students should use one would most likely consider what is available to them in their district, or what their end goal is as far as the student notebooks are concerned.

5. Prior Skills and Knowledge Required of Students

Depending on the amount of personalization that you are expecting out of the student notebooks, the prior skills and knowledge could vary by quite a lot. For example, if you are distributing pages into students’ notebooks and expecting them to fill the notebooks out like a worksheet, then the students will need only basic word processing skills. However, if you are expecting the students to build their notebooks from scratch, the students will have to have a much larger working knowledge of the program that they are using. For example, some teachers make their students build the notebooks page by page and a hyperlinked “Table of Contents” is required. Students will need to understand what hyperlinks are and how to use them.

In addition to this, it cannot be overlooked that students will have to have knowledge of what a scientific notebook includes. For example, if you are requiring students to show lab data in pictures, then the teacher should take time to show examples of what good lab data collection looks like. Students will need to have skills in taking pictures and videos and editing them if necessary.

6. What are students asked to accomplished?

Students are being asked to create a science notebook during their time in science class that demonstrates what they have learned throughout the year. These notebooks can be detailed enough to include all notes, worksheets, and labs completed throughout the year, or they may just have a compilation of laboratory experience. The notebooks will tell an entire story about student learning and understanding in science. Students will predict, collect data and information, and most importantly, reflect on what they have explored or learned.

The artifacts that students can include in their notebooks can be anything from homework assignments, lab conclusions, exit tickets, summary tables, infographics, or unit projects. The important part is that each artifact that is included in a student’s notebook should include a description and a reflection written by the student. This will help students to think like a scientist and demonstrate one of the key components of NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards), “Scientific Practices.” Another important element to any science notebook is to write about the connections that can be found throughout different areas of science at any given time. These are called the CCCs (“cross cutting concepts”). For example, a student might do a lab about heat energy required to make water boil, and then they would learn about the energy that is released when a chemical reaction takes place. Since “energy” is a CCC, students should be able to write essays, reflections, or exit tickets about how they have demonstrated their knowledge of energy throughout their notebook.

Since this case is all about making a science notebook digitized, students will have a lot more options when it comes to recording data. They will be able to take pictures and annotate, like the picture below:

7. What are the procedures of the project?

If the students are to be keeping notes from class in their notebook, the teacher can send out templates, or examples about how to take notes. Finally, the students begin to use their notebook. These will grow with the student throughout the year and can be changed along with the changes that the students make in their own growth during science class. At the end of the year, they should have something that they can reference in their next class, or even build a science portfolio from to demonstrate learning.

8. What are the advantages of the project?

The biggest advantage to the digital notebook vs. a paper notebook is that accessibility of that notebook by teachers and students during school and after school hours. Students can be working on the notebook while teachers are leaving feedback. Students can access their notebook for years to come and in future science classes without having to worry about carrying around a physical book. In addition to this, if class were to ever need to go remote, the notebooks would be there for the students and would remain familiar to them in school and at home. Digital notebooks also allow for pictures, videos, tables to be more easily added than a paper notebook. Now, with the advent of iPads with styluses, students can draw in their notebooks and they are truly not losing anything. Another thing that is great about digital notebooks is the ability for students to collaborate with each other. Students can easily share copies of documents and pages in their notebooks. Finally, the digital notebooks can help students with disabilities. Sometimes students have trouble writing or spelling and with speech to text this can be easier. All students benefit from the organization of the digital notebooks and the ability to fix mistakes easily.

9. What are the disadvantages of the project?

One large disadvantage is that ALL scientific data is meant to be kept, even if it is not correct. In classic science notebooks if a student made an error in a lab, that mistake would have been recorded and would have actually been worth something to the scientist. Science is about learning from mistakes and not being perfect. With digital notebooks students are tempted to rewrite things and simply delete mistakes that they have made. Another disadvantage to digital notebooks would be any digital divide that exists at home. If students do not have access to the internet at their house, it can make it difficult to work in their notebook.

10. What types of instructional strategies are included?

Students will most likely already know how to work with the different programs that they will be creating the notebooks on. The teacher should spend more time on describing the best ways to collect science information in a notebook – digital or not. Teachers can build notebook pages together and collaborate as a class at the start of the year, and then allow the students more creativity as the year progresses. The students will be collecting data, writing, building digital content, collaborating, and solving problems.

11. What are the possibilities that innovation can be transferred to other teachers, subject content, and different school settings?

This is something that can be used in just about any subject area at almost any level. There is always a need for a notebook in class and skills like predicting and reflecting can be used in many subject areas. For example, in English a teacher could create a class notebook to collect thoughts on poems and essays about books. In Social Studies students could create timelines and link to Google Earth for Geography. Digital notebooks could be used all the way to the first grade if teachers scaffolded the content correctly. In fact, the more digital notebooks that students use, the better that they will become at collecting and organizing their lives in their personal digital spaces.

Case #2 - INFOGRAPHICS IN SCIENCE CLASS

1. Reference Information

California Academy of Sciences. (n.d.). Infographics in the Classroom Teacher Toolkit. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.calacademy.org/educators/infographics-in-the-classroom-teacher-toolkit

Davidson, R. (2014, March). Using infographics in the science classroom. Science Teacher, 81(3), 34–39. https://s3.amazonaws.com/nstacontent/tst1403_34.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIMRSQAV7P6X4QIKQ&Expires=1664800071&Signature=7c%2bGvNcs46UK%2bsQb%2f83vGRMjRYs%3d

Saad, A., & Naparin, H. (2017, December). Infographics in education: A review on infographic design. The International Journal of Multimedia and Its Applications, 9(4/5/6), 15–24. https://doi.org/10.5121/ijma.2017.9602

STEM Literacy through Infographics. (n.d.). SLI. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from http://science-infographics.org

2. A Brief Description of the Case

Infographics are visual collections of data that helps an audience to understanding information more easily. Infographics use art where there would otherwise just be a collection of numbers. Data can be understood at a glance with a properly made infographic. In this case, students will work with infographics, learn what they are and how they are used, and finally the students will create their own infographics to teach an audience of their peers about a topic in science class.

3. The Purpose of The Innovation

The purpose of this innovation is for students to interpret, critique, and create their own infographics. Infographics are interesting to look at and can make difficult concepts easier to learn. Humans are visual learners and infographics can present difficult concepts quickly and are easier to understand that simply words alone. In addition to this, when a student makes an infographic, it helps to practice scientific skills. NGSS skills such as "reading and interpreting data" and "using evidence to support arguments" can be built into just about any lesson that requires a student to make their own infographic.

4. The Technology and Resources Involved

Infographics can be built in many different types of software, but the best apps are those that are made specifically for designing infographics like Canva or Piktochart. If students cannot use these programs because of cost or limitations to their devices, they can create their infographics on Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, Google Slides, or Docs.

The students will also need to access a variety of resources to collect data. This is the data that they will sort through and show on their infographics. They can collect this data in the classroom in the form of a lab, or go to the Internet to find reliable data sets from places like NASA or the EPA.

5. Prior Skills and Knowledge Required of Students

Students will have to have an understanding of what an Infographic really is. They are everywhere, from the news to social media, but there are specific things that make good infographic. A good infographic has a clear message, has exactly the right amount of data and correctly represents it, and finally, uses art and design elements to support the story. The students will need to have good research techniques and be able to synthesize data that they find. In addition to this, students will need to be able to work with the software that they are going to be using to create their infographics. Apps like Canva have a lot of tutorials for students right on their website. Finally, students will need to have a good amount of math skills to be able to put together data that is meaningful to their audience.

6. What are students asked to accomplished?

The students will first be asked to look at an analyze infographics that were made by other people. This is a good way to scaffold this entire project. They should interpret the information shared in the infographics and share their ideas with other students in the class. If a teacher wants to take this a step farther, they can have students write up essays about what they have learned from the example infographics and what the messages meant to them personally. This will help them to develop a meaningful relationship with infographics and will make them more than just a quick picture that they skip over in a news article. The following comes from Visually's Science Infographic Examples.

From there, they will have to create their own infographic using data that they either collect in class or find on the Internet. The students will make a simple infographic that tells a message to the reader. It is important that they don't make too large of an infographic too soon.

Finally, the students will share their infographic to a public audience. The school newspaper works well, or a social media page set up by the teacher. By sharing the infographic the students will usually want to work harder and will take more ownership in their work.

7. What are the procedures of the project?

The students first look at infographics. There are many examples of infographics all over the internet, but the teacher should make sure that they do not overwhelm the students with too many.

Some questions that students can consider when interpreting infographics are:

• • What ideas or pieces of information does the author represent?

  • What is the main conclusion or story you can identify from the graphic?

  • What do the numbers in the graphic represent? What are the units?

  • Where did the data come from, and how was it collected?

  • How are the numbers/data in the graphic represented? (graphs, charts, maps, etc.?)

  • What other ways does the author tell the audience about the key message?

  • What questions do you have about the graphic?

  • What do you like and dislike about the graphic?

From there the students will create their own projects. The first step in making an infographic is to learn how to look through data. The students will need help researching and synthesizing data, they will need to practice with smaller data sets before they work their way into the world of huge amounts of data. From there, they should again examine examples of quality infographics so that they can get a feel for what their end project should look like.

The students should also practice making data visual. This might be practice making pie charts or bar graphs. Reading and interpreting graphs is an NGSS skill and all of the work done here will be used in science for years to come.

Finally, the students will make their projects. They should choose a topic that is meaningful to them and to other students their age. The more interesting their projects, the more likely they will be to put effort into them. They will use apps such as Canva or PowerPoint to make an infographic that can be shared with an audience of their peers.

Here are some guidelines that students can follow, taken from the teacher toolkit from the Califormia Academy of Sciences.

Keep it simple.

• • Aim to impart one or two key messages.

  • Everything on your graphic should have a reason for being there.

Tell the truth.

• • Keep it accurate.

  • Be fair - Choose your statistics wisely. Means/averages, medians, and percentages tell different stories.

Blow them away.

• • Draw them in with interesting, innovative design.

  • Shake up traditional charts, graphs, maps, etc.

  • Draw viewers’ attention to the substance of the graphic.

This website from Stem Literacy through Infographics has a ton of resources for students and teachers to use when creating an infographic.

8. What are the advantages of the project?

Infographics help students to think critically about data and organize their thoughts into messages that are easy for a peer to understand. Infographics made on computers do not require the artistic skill that was once needed to create scientific charts on paper. Students who engage with data through pictures have a better understanding of what they are reading about and are more likely to remember what they have learned. As mentioned before, humans are visual learners and infographics tap into this. Finally, creating infographics will help to conquer several NGSS skills required for graduation.

9. What are the disadvantages of the project?

One disadvantage is that some students struggle to interpret data that is in the form of pictures and charts. Teachers need to make sure that students' graph interpretation skills are up to par before they expect them to understand an infographic. Another disadvantage is that creating anything like this during classtime can be time consuming. Students often want to do well and create perfect projects and this can eat up a lot of time that could be used in other ways.

10. What types of instructional strategies are included?

Students are learning how to read and interpret data, create art, make graphs, and use apps that they would not have otherwise had the chance to use. Teachers are offering good examples of work and scaffolding how to create an infographic step by step.

11. What are the possibilities that innovation can be transferred to other teachers, subject content, and different school settings?

This is something that can be used in just about any subject area at almost any level. There is always a need for students needing to be able to synthesize information and present it to peers. For example, in English a teacher could require students to create an infographic about different types of books or on a specific author. In Social Studies students could create timelines that had pictures that described what happened during that time. Infographics could be used all the way from the first grade if teachers scaffolded the content correctly. In fact, the more infographics that students create and look at, the better that they will become at putting together information and showing what they have learned from classes.