Interactive Notebooks - Round Two

(Click here for my previous posts on Interactive notebooks, including my plans and experiences from last year.)

After giving Interactive Notebooks a shot last year and considering how they failed, I've decided to have another go at them.  However, I've made some strategic changes to avoid the problems we encountered next year.  The biggest issue was inserting materials into the notebook.  As long as students were simply copying down information, they worked great and never had to search for notes since I could tell them exactly where to find them.  However, I have a lot of handouts for reference, and that's where I ran into troubles.  After some experimenting, here's what I've decided to do:

Students will have a combination of a 1" Binder (with a pocket in the front and back) and Interactive Notebook composition book.  Handouts and loose leaf paper (for quizzes) will be organized into the binder, while notes will go into the notebook.  The composition book will go into the pocket of the binder (this is why I want a 1" binder instead of 1/2").  Thus, the binder is a kind of "Appendix" for the notebook and I know exactly where students should be looking for items without either of them getting too crammed.  They can even write references on worksheets (see page so-and-so in IN) and annotate notes to refer to handouts.

I will specify this year that the comp book MUST be 100 sheets and standard size (this was an issue last year, especially when you're trying to tell students to put certain items on certain pages).  Because this notebook is strictly for notes, and the binder is for the items that are handed in/out, the set-up will be simple.  I'm trying to decide whether I should even take class time to have them do it or just assign the set-up as homework (I'm leaning toward the latter and making it due at the end of the first week):

• Interactive Notebook Set-Up (see pictures below)
• Students number the odd pages in the TOP, RIGHT-HAND corner (the trick to this is to have them do the ones first throughout the entire book (1, 3, 5, 7, 9) and then go back and do the tens (skip first 5, then put "1" in front of the next five, then "2", etc. all the way through 15 for books with 80 sheets or 20 for books with 100 sheets)
• For the sections, students fold over the corner of their page until it meets the center, like how the Origami projects started to make a rectangle page square.  Alternatively, they could do tabs, but I found that most students chose not to get tabs, so this is a quick-and-easy way to make the sections easy to flip to.
• Students write the section heading on this folded over part (so if you unfolded it, it would be on the back of the page).  
• The Table of Contents goes on the front of the unfolded page.  Students will fill these in as they take notes.
• Interactive Notebook Sections:
• 1 - Table of Contents (includes the page numbers for the following sections; individual page numbers for specific notes goes on the section page)
• 3 - Essential Vocabulary (this is the vocabulary that they will be tested on)
• 51 - Verb Karate (Only for Spanish II/II)
• 75 - Algo Más
• 101 - Reading Journal
• Binder Setup
• Front pocket - Interative Notebook (on the rare occasion that I provide a handout for homework, it would go in the front pocket, too, unless they have another designated location for homework)
• Before first tab: Syllabus and Diarios (each new item will go on top of the last, so the Syllabus will actually be at the back of this section and the most recent Diario that they're working on should be at the front).
• Tab 1: Song Lyrics
• Tab 2: Algo Más and Other Handouts
• Tab 3: Quizzes and Assessments (this is for their reading, listening, and writing quizzes at the end of each week)
• Tab 4: Verb Karate (Spanish I and II only) - I am providing a basic cheat sheet/reference guide with verb endings that will go at the front of this section (students can also put other printed guides, such as those available on conjuguemos.com and studyspanish.com, with this).  Afterward, they'll put their completed Verb Karate attempts so they can review their mistakes and study.  Of course, all notes and practice that I have them do will go into the IN, so this is an excellent example of where students may want to annotate the items in their IN with the page numbers of where the notes they took are.
• Tab 5 (Tab 4 for Intro to Spanish and Spanish I): Loose leaf paper for quizzes (notes go in the IN!), so they won't need more than 1 or 2 sheets of loose leaf paper each week.  I'll recommend students put about 20 sheets of paper in there to start with and re-stock when their supply gets low).

 Sometimes I wonder if this is too much and if I should just stick to a binder, but then I remember what it was like trying to keep track of notes that I took and getting them mixed in (or never put in) with all the paper in my own binder.  Hopefully, this will at least make it possible to keep all the notes they take organized and, in the worst case scenario, students will only lose the handouts that I make available online for them to print anyway.  I will be checking their reading journals at the end of each semester, so I may as well go ahead and flip through the entire notebook and make that part of their grade (one of my class goals is for students to prepare themselves for their futures by taking accurate notes and keeping materials organized, so it's justified!).  I'll post pictures and reactions as we get to it.  I'm feeling fairly confident this will work for us!

Overall Index

"Algo Más" section divider

Index/Table of Contents for "Algo Más" section

Reading Journal section header

Index for essential vocabulary

Reading Journal example

Notes

Notes

Interactive Notebooks Revisited

Many of you liked my ideas for using Interactive Notebooks last year.  I did give them a shot this year, and learned a lot about implementation, especially about WHEN they're appropriate.  Unfortunately, they didn't work out as I'd hoped for one main reason: my class is more handout-heavy than it is note-heavy.  Let me elaborate.

In my class, we don't do a lot of note taking.  For the most part, some key vocabulary is introduced and students write down that vocabulary and anything I point out that might help them.  I don't emphasize grammar.  If I did, there would be a lot more notes to take and the Interactive Notebooks would have worked better.  Indeed, when we did take notes, it worked like a charm.  However, we do a lot of learning through discussion and songs.  Discussion doesn't lend itself to notes (obviously), while it's just not efficient for students to copy down lyrics to songs and translate them.  Instead, I provide handouts with the lyrics, a CLOZE activity, etc.  The trouble with all these handouts is that they have to go somewhere.  When using an Interactive Notebook, especially when utilizing a composition book, the only way to get the handouts in there is with tape or glue, which resulted in a number of problems.  Tape is the best since it's least likely for the papers to fall out - that is, of course, assuming that students realize that the tape needs to be positioned in such a way that about half of it is on each paper (some students would tape with 99% of the tap on the handout out and the tiniest sliver of tape actually connecting it to the notebook.  Moreover, students didn't have tape, didn't take the time to actually tape things in, and things fell out.  Not good in a handout-heavy class.

My last complaint is that, while IN's offer so many cool opportunities with foldable, foldable frankly eat up time in a secondary classroom.  Often, there's so much time spent creating the foldable that could be better spent simply instructing and moving on.  Thus, foldables in my classroom were more or less eliminated in order to make sure I had enough teaching time.  At this age, I could very easily provide the information online and ask students to make the foldables at home if I felt they were necessary (I don't - students often find equal or better ways of studying).  I'd like to revisit foldable at another time (and possibly their application in another subject as I can see how it would better organize certain information, but I don't have anything that calls for that just now), but they just weren't efficient in this class.

I also ran into issues with students who never created their notebook for one reason or another.  This is likely a first-year teacher symptom, but a small number of students either joined the class late or simply didn't have their notebook on the days we put them together, so they ended up just taking notes on random pages of their notebook or didn't take notes in a notebook at all.  This was a bit frustrating, especially since these were the students that may have benefitted the most from the structure of an IN.

I guess the moral of the story is that, while IN's can work well in some situations, they're aren't necessarily the best option in others.  If I had a note-taking heavy class where I could title pages and have students take relevant notes (my high school economics class comes to mind), this would be a wonderful tool that would fit the job well.  On the other extreme, if you have a class where note taking is minimum and your class calls for more organization of handouts, IN's are not the answer (this is where I fall).  If you fall somewhere in the middle where you have a lot of note taking, but you also have handouts, I might suggest (and am considering, given some changes to my curriculum) having students combine a folder/binder with an IN - have students put their handouts in the folder/binder and keep the IN for notes in the pocket.  I'm still toying around with what I want to do for next year.  I think I have too many handouts for a folder to suffice (if you do go the handout route, I would suggest using one with the brackets in the middle to keep things more secure), but a small binder with a limited number of tabs to organize the handouts may just be the trick and I've already checked that a composition book will fit nicely in the pockets of said binder.  Plus, binders are more sturdy than folders anyway.

As a final note, here are some things to specify to students about getting their composition book that I didn't anticipate: I didn't realize different composition books had different numbers of pages.  Thus, when I told students to put things on page 95, but they only had 80 pages, we ran into some troubles.  Also, somehow students assumed that all IN's were equal and showed up with these itty bitty notebooks (wha...?).  Moreover, some assumed a spiral notebook would work just as well (they don't).  So, be VERY specific about what notebook students should be getting.

Student Work

As I plan for my class this fall, I'm envisioning the types of things students will be doing and how they will be turning them in.  I'm not a fan of paperwork and homework - it's too much to grade and doesn't really do much anyway.  However, I've come up with a few ways to organize student work that I think will work very well.

First, I am a huge fan of interactive notebooks and plan for students to create their own.  I've mentioned this before, but now as I'm working through my curriculum, I have a much clearer idea of what I want their notebooks to look like.  This takes a huge amount of forethought and planning as there are a limited number of pages and they cannot simply be added or taken away, but should contain evidence of all the learning and activities students complete as a part of my class.  As I solidify my ideas about what I want students' notebooks to look like, I'm also creating my own version as a test-IN as well as a future example for students.  Thus far, my IN is laid out like this:

• Front cover: Name, Class, and Teacher (and any other decorations and designs as they please)
• Inside front cover: Glued/Taped-in Table of Contents
• Page 1: Taped-in Syllabus
• Pages 2-3: Grouping arrangements
• Pages 4-13: Grade Trackers
• Page 4: Objective 1: Listening (Semester 1)
• Page 5: Objective 1: Listening (Semester 2)
• Page 6: Objective 2: Reading (Semester 1)
• Page 7: Objective 2: Reading (Semester 2)
• Page 8: Objective 3: Writing (Semester 1)
• Page 9: Objective 3: Writing (Semester 2)
• Page 10: Objective 4: Speaking (Semester 1)
• Page 11: Objective 4: Speaking (Semester 2)
• Page 12: Objective 5: Citizenship (Semester 1)
• Various chunks of this grade have their own tracking sheets taped in
• Page 13: Objective 5: Citizenship (Semester 2)
• Various chunks of this grade have their own tracking sheets taped in
• Pages 14-69: Pruebitas (warm-ups)
• This is the only section that we will be using on a daily basis to check understanding and learning, so there needs to be plenty of room.
• Pages 70-89: Timed Writes
• Students will do timed writes in their notebook and on separate sheets of paper taped in to conserve notebook space.
• Pages 90-155: Stories
• The first two pages are reserved for hand-outs with an overview of all of the structures.
• The remaining pages are for notes about the stories on the right-hand pages (writing the structures and any info about them, events in the story, etc), while the left-hand pages are reserved for student interaction with the information, such as re-writing the story in various ways, illustrations, etc.
• Pages 156-200: Misc
• Everything else, including culture, songs, alphabet, numbers, anything extra we do with the novel, etc.  Oftentimes, these will be taped-in hand outs or notes.

Though most in-class work will be completed in the IN, which will be checked/stamped periodically and assigned a mid-term and final grade, there are a few other activities that won't be included in the IN other than where they're recorded in the grade-tracker.  Here's what I've got so far:

• Reading Journal: Assigned and submitted weekly via EdModo using a form or template.
• Re-Writes: Students can submit their re-writes of the stories the same night via EdModo (see my Classroom Storybook post).
• Pen Pals: I can check of that students have turned in Pen Pal letters before distributing them

Interactive Notebooks

Interactive notebooks are a note-taking method I plan to utilize in my classroom.  Students create their own interactive notebook out of a composition notebook.  Tabs are added to create sections, and students fill in the contents of the notebook throughout the year.  In general, students take notes (teacher input) on the right-hand page, and personalize the information on the left-hand side of the page.  At the end of the year, they will have created a comprehensive record of their classroom experience.  Note: There are some assignments and items completed outside the notebook (EdModo, culture projects, etc.), but there is always some evidence of this work in the notebook (see Grade Trackers), so it truly includes everything done in class.

Here is the Interactive Notebook I created as example for my Spanish 1 Students - hopefully once next year is over I'll have some wonderfully-done and much more creative student examples.  Click on the pictures for a bigger version.

The front of the notebook!  I prefer to use composition books as it gives me a concrete notebook for students to personalize.  They can choose any type of composition book, but they all have 200 pages for you to make the most of.  Pages cannot be taken out or moved (no more "it fell out of my binder!" or "it didn't have holes!"), but you can add pages, such as worksheets and handouts, in a variety of ways.  We'll call these "foldables" from now on - and there are a lot more foldable ideas than I'll be listing here (check out this pinterest board for a bunch of creative and fun foldables!).  I used heavy-duty tabs on this notebook, but you can also use tape to make your own tabs by lining up two pieces of tape with each other on opposite sides of the same page, and then putting a slip of paper in the middle of the tape.

Inside the front cover.  \This is where I put my Table of Contents.  (I'm going to have to think of a nicer way for students to do this - possibly by creating/coloring their own Table of Contents?).  On the first page goes the syllabus for the class.  As you can see, a sheet of paper folded in half fits nicely and inside notebook. Students write the headings for that page on the top, and then papers can be taped or glued in.  Taping the paper in allows you to use both sides of the paper - if I open it up to the right (as shown), you can see the front, but I can also flip it over to the other side with the tape acting as a hinge.  This also allows me to still use the page behind the paper for notes!

A very important point that I need to make here is that each item has its own specific page.  For example, EVERYONE's syllabus is on the first page.  And the page 152 in one students' notebook should have the same information as page 152 in another students' notebook.  I keep my Table of Contents in the front of the notebook very simple - mainly restricted to what tabs students need to use - and have more detailed Sub-Table of Contents pages where I need them (seen below).  This requires planning on your part and a clear idea of where you're going as well as how much of the notebook is going to be used for each section.  I find this keeps me very organized as well!  Of course, there's always that semi-large "Misc." section at the end of the notebook for everything I don't have a specific plan or section for ;).

1st Tab: Grouping.  I want students to be able to find their groups quickly and so wanted it to have its own tab.  Since it is more of a procedure, it seemed logical to put this at the front.  I left two pages so that I have plenty of room to add additional grouping configurations.  It is easy to tape in additional papers behind the first one and fold them over one another, so I could really have as many grouping configurations as I wanted to.  In addition, I could even have them tape in or copy down "group roles" for quick reference here.

2nd Tab: Grade Trackers.  These are one of the most important parts of my IN.  In order to empower my students to use keep track of their progress (and even predict their grade!), students graph their scores on each of my five objectives (Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking, Citizenship).  Each objective has a page for first semester (S1) and a page for second semester (S2) opposite one another.  Each time students do an assessment (usually formative, but also the occasional summative), students record and graph their scores, including a page number for the notebook if applicable.

 I have students label their grade trackers with the different levels of achievement - in this class, I use proficiency levels of "Advanced", "Proficient", "Basic", and "Below Basic" - which roughly translate to grades of A, B, C, D and less.  Certain objectives, such as my writing objective, use benchmarks along the way that students grade themselves against, which you can see in the grade tracker.  My grading is based off student performance at the end of the semester.  However, by checking the trends in their grade trackers, students will have a pretty good idea of where they're at in meeting the objectives and how they will do on the final, which determines their final grade.  This also helps them focus their studying by showing which areas are strong or need improvement - and recording page numbers where that assessment is in the IN also allows students to identify which specific materials they need to work on.

My citizenship grade takes into account things like participation and attendance, the notebook check (once per quarter), completing mini-assignments like EdModo submissions and pen pal letters, etc.  As such, I plan to use a variety of forms in the Citizenship grade tracker that I can quickly check.  The Participation and Attendance also serves as a classroom management tool - if a student needs to use the restroom during class or is absent, they can note it in their notebook (I need to make a key!).  If a student does make-up work, they can also note it.  Then, when I do notebook checks, I simply need to check the sheet, fill out the score, and hand the notebook back! I'm planning on students putting their rubric and score for their culture presentation here as well.

3rd tab: Pruebitas.  These are formative checks done daily. Students simply complete the warm up or other activity, date it, and will usually record and graph their scores in the appropriate Grade Tracker section.  Again, if a student scores poorly, they can simply check the Grade Tracker and turn to the pruebita they scored poorly on to study.

4th tab: Timed Writes.  This is where students do their timed writes.  If students need more space than allowed in the notebook, or if I want to collect them, students can do their timed writes on loose-leaf paper that will later be taped in (I provide loose-leaf paper to my students since it will only occasionally be needed and students may not have their own).  I only set aside 20 pages in the IN for timed writes since I only need enough pages for students to have a place to tape in their timed writes after I've collected and checked them.  I haven't decided the type of feedback I want to give on timed writes, but this is an excellent way for students to track their progress and observe how their writing is changing.  Of course, students graph their scores and record the page number of the timed write on the Grade Tracker for our Writing objective!

 5th tab: Stories. This is the largest section of my IN since so much is dedicated to storytelling.  Of course, any reading or activities that go with these stories logically fit here as well.  The first page after my tab is a Table of Contents specifically for the stories so students can find a specific story quickly.  The opposite page will have a hand-out taped in of all of our structures for the entire year for quick-reference and studying.  I plan to only have the Spanish structures listed, so students have to fill in the English translations themselves as we go along. (I don't have pictures of these since I haven't decided on my entire curriculum, so I don't know what I want to put in there yet!)

The next two pages are dedicated to the TPR words I plan to do at the beginning of the year.  I limited myself to 20 concrete words that I would use often in class when giving directions, but also come up frequently in the story.  The basic layout for this entire section is how I was taught to do a "traditional" interactive notebook: Teacher input on the right-hand page, student interaction on the left-hand page.  As such, the list of TPR words are on the right-hand page with their translations and a hint or "bridge" between the word and its meaning (Note to self: this would make a great foldable!).  On the left-hand page is the "assignment" - "Pick three words that are difficult for you.  Illustrate the word and add a caption that helps you remember what it means."  As you can tell, I am a wonderful artist.

This is what the notes for a story would look like.  On the right-hand page is the teacher input: The structures and their translations are copied down.  After the divider goes any miscellaneous notes, whether I told students to write it down or students wrote down something that stuck out to them.  On the left-hand page is the assignment for that particular story.  For instance, this assignment was to "Illustrate each of the three parts of the story and a summary of what happened in each part."

 6th tab: Misc.  This is my "everything else" tab - culture, songs, random vocabulary, etc.  It allows me to be flexible - it's OK if I don't get to the Sr. Wooly song like I wanted to!  I just don't have that page in the notebook for that class.  Of course, that means there has to be a Table of Contents at the beginning of this section - Since i set aside about 50 pages, I set aside the first two pages for the Table of Contents.  The rest of these pictures are various examples for how I could use this section.

"Power of Cognates" handout to be filled in as we cover new cognates, as well as a notes page for False Cognates.

Alphabet and Numbers Notes/Handouts

Sr. Wooly Cloze Activity with notes behind it.

Sr. Wooly foldable

 Hand outs and notes about Spanish-Speaking countries of the world.

Subject pronouns nots and song lyrics

 Day of the Dead KWL and response question