Interactive Notebook Challenges

It seems my post the other week about using Interactive Notebooks in my classroom has been quite a hit, frequently getting the majority of search returns for my blog. In an effort to share as much as I’ve learned in my 3 years using them, I wanted to toss out a few of the struggles I have had with the notebooks in that time:

• Grading – I mentioned this before, but grading the notebooks can be troublesome in several ways.  First, there’s the question of how to grade it in a standards based classroom.  Since there’s no standard for “properly maintaining and organizing a notebook” in most state standards, this becomes somewhat of a challenge to include in the grading schema.  Second, there’s the issue of the time it takes to grade the notebooks if they are collected and graded.  My general plan was to do spot checks throughout the grading period, then collect them at the end for a full grading.  I would collect my notebooks by homeroom group as there were 7 groups instead of just 4.  This meant I had roughly 12 to 15 notebooks to grade each day.  The good ones weren’t a problem, I could knock those out in a few minutes usually.  The problem was for those students who were struggling.  I felt compelled to comment on a number of the things that needed fixing, and this led to a great deal of time spent on commenting and grading.
• Freedom of Choice – While this is overall one of the greatest benefits of the notebook, for some students it is a tremendous stumbling block.  Students have not often had the opportunity to choose what they do to process knowledge.  They have a hard time making that switch.  They often ask teachers to “just tell me what to do.”  This is not the intent of the Interactive Notebook. The goal is for students to understand the Sinkers so they can choose things to process information on their own, in the best way for them.  This requires a large investment of time discussing the various uses of Sinkers and how each student learns best.
• Initial Setup – This requires a huge investment of time.  Students have to understand the purpose of something they are entirely unfamiliar with before really diving into the notebook.  The first day we’re in the notebook, we spend the entire time setting up the table of contents, Hook pages, and gluing in page after page of initial information.  I give students several sheets to glue in: Notebook Rules and Purpose, Grading, 3 pages of Sinkers, Common Notebook Activities, Standard Course of Study…this gives great practice for gluing pages into the notebook, but it is also a lot to go over prior to really using the notebook.  We also number out the first 50 to 60 pages to help prevent misnumbering…all this leads to my biggest challenge…
• NEW STUDENTS — When you spend a solid week of class time getting students familiarized with the notebook format, doing sample and practice activities, and then go on to use it the rest of the year, there are bound to be repercussions.  Every teacher is driven crazy by that student who moves in during the 3rd or 4th grading period.  However, with the extent to which the notebook has become a part of our class at that point, it’s even more distressing getting that new student late in the year.  How do you go through a half year’s worth of set up in a few days? How do you get that student to understand the goals of the notebook? What if it’s right before a notebook test?  All of these are issues and concerns that have to be weighed.  I normally keep an extra notebook or two handy with the first set of pages already glued in for the new arrivals.  This seems to lower the student’s initial investment in the notebook in most cases, so it’s not a foolproof idea.

These are the primary challenges I’ve faced using Interactive Notebooks in my classroom.  I still think that overall the impact of the notebook is very powerful.  I’m hoping this year to focus more on the intermitent grading/checking of the notebook to help maintain quality throughout the year.  Anyone have other issues, suggestions or comments? Feel free to share!

Image: “Grading” by ninniane licensed through Creative Commons

Day 5: Marine Science Academy

The final day of the Marine Science Academy is what we generally call “Aquarium Day.” We load up on 2 buses and take the entire 55 student group to the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. The day is broken up into 4 parts. Students participate in a squid dissection, a remote operated vehicle activity, and a behind the scenes tour of the aquarium. Afterward we gather all the students, parents, school board members, sponsors and other involved into the theater at the Aquarium for a short wrap up presentation of pictures from throughout the week.

Squid Dissection
After the previous day’s experience with the turtle, I wondered how this would go. We started off with a discussion of classification. Students had a small collection of shells on their table and had to organize them into piles based on characteristics of their choosing. The instructor then went through a discussion of the classification of mollusks including our friend the squid. Afterward, we gave the kids a squid to be shared between partners. We discussed external anatomy and then the kids got cutting. Many had done squid dissections before and new right away what was what. We continued and found the beak and removed the lenses of the eyes. From there we had a discussion of some of the escape artist tricks of aquarium octopi.

ROV Workshop
The aquarium staff has prepared a presentation on a number of things related to underwater ocean exploration. They go through some of the history of underwater diving and lead up to a number of underwater research craft including remotely operated vehicles. Video footage of some of the discoveries made by ROVs was include in the presentation. There were also activities to help the students understand density and buoyancy which were a wonderful tie in to our activities from Monday. For the last few minutes of the session students got the opportunity to head out to the dock and drive two small ROVs in the waters of Core Sound.

Behind the Scenes Tour
Our final activity during the day and the camp was the behind the scenes tour of the Aquarium. Our group took the tour backwards as they would be preparing for a live dive during the time we should have reached the shark tank. So we began our tour on top of the 306,000 gallon shark exhibit. It was somewhat unnerving to know you were standing above that much water with sharks who knew they were waiting for supper!

From there we continued behind the scenes where we got a look at the food preparation area, some of the animals used for live animal education (alligators, sea turtles, and land turtles), and the filtration systems for the aquarium. Students really enjoyed the opportunity to see the jellyfish and sea turtles that are kept out of public view. All in all, this is one of my favorite experiences of the camp.

Final Presentation
To end the camp, we all assemble in the theater at the Aquarium with families and friends of the Academy for a short presentation of pictures from the week.

WMV of Final Presentation

Day 4: Marine Science Academy

Apologies for how long it has taken to get this post ready and up…the final post should come along tomorrow to finish up the week of our Marine Science Academy

The fourth day of our Marine Science Academy took place mostly back around Carteret Community College. We started off the morning with two activities to culminate our work at Cape Lookout from Tuesday.

Graphing Transect Data
After the students collected data on the topography of the beach Tuesday, we had to work to make sense out of what they had compiled. Students used Microsoft Excel and created a surface map chart of the data. Many of the students had used Excel before, but this was an authentic use similar to one in a marine science career and many of the students were amazed at how closely their model resembled the area of the beach they were mapping.

Biological Sampling Comparison
On Cape Lookout during the Tuesday rotations, one activity was to count the number of snails in the saltwater marsh. Students found a tremendous number of snails in the natural marsh. Behind the Community College, the Coastal Federation has been working to grow an artificial marsh by planting Spartina alterniflora. The group went down to the manmade marsh and did the same sample collection finding significantly fewer snails. Though the man-made marsh looks healthy and thriving, this serves as evidence that we can’t create overnight what nature has taken years and years to perfect.

Sea Turtle Dissection
After the morning sessions, we headed back over to the NC State Marine Lab for a sea turtle necropsy. Many of the students in our group had professed a desire to be marine biologists in the future. What better way to get a handle on this than to get into some real work exploring what caused the death of a marine animal? The only problem was, after the first cut, a good 20 of our 55 students were headed outside for some air!

Dr. Craig Harms led the necropsy of a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle. He led us through a discussion of some of the external anatomy of the turtle prior to the dissection. He explained that our turtle was a juvenile and we wouldn’t know if it was male or female until we got a look inside. He also pointed out two gashes that appeared to be caused by a boat motor or two on the exterior of the turtle’s shell. From there, he began the necropsy. Many kids were right there, front and center, ready to see what was going on. Many others discovered that their interest in biology was strictly for invertebrates and microbiology.

Dr. Harms took us through all the parts of the turtle’s internal anatomy. We discovered that our turtle was a female and her last meal appeared to be a crab. From the internal blood clots, we found that she was alive at the time she was hit by the boat props. Those wounds were likely what lead to her death, as everything else appeared to be healthy. After the information was collected, students had an opportunity to explore the anatomy of the turtle

********WARNING: GRAPHIC SCIENCE IMAGE BELOW***********

Living on the Aquarius
After lunch, we headed to the lecture hall of the community college for a presentation by Dr. Niels Lindquist. Dr. Lindquist has been on numerous missions aboard the Aquarius, an underwater research vessel. Each stay lasted from a week to 10 days for a total of nearly 70 days underwater. Dr. Lindquist shared some experience about living underwater and his research on sponges. It was rather surprising how interesting a discussion of sponges could be. He rounded out the talk discussing stewardship of our oceans and sounds. The main thing he was trying to make students aware of was the increasing numbers of lionfish in the coastal waters of the US. He shared with us this video with some surprising statistics about the proliferation of lionfish along coastal waters.

NC Maritime Museum
Our final stop on day four was a trip to Beaufort, NC (in NC we pronounce it “bow-fort”) to the North Carolina Maritime Museum. At the museum we had the kids go through five stations where they learned about the history of boat making in North Carolina. At one station, they were taken through some hands on exhibits of the different kinds of watercraft that were historically made or used in North Carolina waters. The highlight of this area was the pulley display where I got to discuss some of the physics behind simple machines as there were four different block and tackle systems set up to lift the same amount of weight.

Next, our kids got a chance to head up to the observation deck atop the Maritime Museum. From here we looked a bit at the landscape of the area. We could see the lighthouse on Cape Lookout approximately 10 miles away, Fort Macon, Carrot Island, Shackleford Island, Piver’s Island, and a number of other local landmarks from the observation deck.

Then we headed back inside for a scavenger hunt of the museum. The hunt took us through a look at the history of Blackbeard the pirate, boat making in NC, underwater diving apparatus, clipper ships, and tools of the seafaring trade.

After that, we headed across the street to the watercraft shop, where students got a chance to try out their boat-making skills first hand. Students got to experience planing boards, making pegs, drilling holes, and a number of the other parts of hand crafting a sea-going vessel.

Finally, we headed into the library at the museum to hear a brief discussion about the efforts to raise the wreckage of what is believed to be Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, just off the coast of Beaufort. There have been a number of pieces recovered that date to the time period of the sinking of the QAR, and several other discoveries that make historians believe that this wreckage is actually that of Blackbeard’s ship. Students got a brief history lesson, as well as a science lesson on the restoration process of some of the cannon and other recovered pieces.

Day 3: Marine Science Academy

On the third day of the Brad Sneeden Marine Science Academy, the students had three activities that took them all over the Sound just off Beaufort, NC. My group of students started off on Piver’s Island at the Duke Marine lab, then boarded the Susan B. Hudson research vessel to go over to Shackleford Island. At Shackleford, we met up with Dr. Sue Stuska who took us to view some of the island’s wild horses. Finally, we reboarded the Susan Hudson for a dredge/trawling activity in the sound.

Duke Marine Lab
At the Duke Marine Lab, students met with one of the graduate students in marine biology. She led us through a discussion of the characteristics of marine mammals, starting off with whales. The students were given the task of pretending to be each of the three types of baleen whales: strainers, gulpers, and bubblers. The students seemed to have the most fun being bubblers. Here’s a picture of four students working together as bubblers using oregano to represent fish, straws to represent the whales expelling bubbles from their blow holes, allowing them to create a “bait ball” of fish.

And here’s a video from Nature’s Great Events of a humpback whale swallowing a bait ball created by dolphins:

From there, the students got a chance to try out Adobe Audition to view and listen to recordings of dolphin sounds. Students worked to isolate the “voices” of particular dolphins by listening and viewing the waveform of the audio files.

Shackleford Island Horses
After boarding the Susan B. Hudson and taking the short trip over to Shackleford, the students had a walking lunch on the way to view some of the horses. Shackleford has 121 wild horses that have been here in North Carolina for centuries. Legend has it that they swam/washed ashore from sinking ships sailing from Europe, however the likelihood of those ships carrying both male and female horses is slim. The horses are genetically linked to Spanish horses, but there is no certain point or time of origin for these horses in North Carolina.

After a short walk, we came upon a normal sized harem with one stallion and three mares.

This group of horses walked up to us and a couple of them were less than 5 feet away from members of our group. Dr. Stuska assured us that to these horses humans are generally little more than part of the landscape, like trees or bushes. They do not as of yet look for human food as they have an abundance of food on the islands. They also only become wary of humans if we come too close or appear to surround them.

While we watched, Dr. Stuska discussed a couple of different methods for biological sampling by having some students continuously looking for behavior changes, while others recorded behaviors every 30 seconds. The students were testing the hypothesis that mares graze more often than stallions. Though we only were able to watch for about 4 to 5 minutes, the hypothesis was supported by the data collected. Dr. Stuska confirmed the results, but added that stallions appear to eat faster than mares despite the decreased grazing time.

After the few minutes of data collection, we moved further down the island to observer another harem. This one had eight total horses including a couple of foals. One of the females was suspected to be pregnant and another of the rangers was attempting to collect a dung sample to confirm their suspicions. We spent about another half hour observing the horses and then headed back to board the Susan Hudson for our trawling activity.

On Board the Susan Hudson
The winds were too strong for us to take the Susan Hudson out oceanside, so we stayed in the sound for our dredge and trawling activities. After a few minutes on the water, we dropped the dredge bucket to see what sorts of organisms we could collect off the bottom of the Sound. Our dredge returned an abundance of sea urchins and lots of empty oyster shells. Digging around we found a few other interesting critters. There were some small crabs, a couple of hermit crabs, live scallops, and a couple of unknown gastropods. The students were most interested in the sea urchins and a brittle star that was found after the initial search.

After the dredge, we tossed out the trawl net to see what we could find higher in the water column. Hauling in the net returned a small number of fish, but some with interesting differences. We caught a couple of spot, a small flounder, and a lizardfish. Students took time to look at the adaptations that allowed each fish to fill its’ particular ecological niche. Earlier in the day, the students caught a flounder that was young enough to still have an eye on each side of its head, but unfortunately had to toss it back before our group boarded the ship.

All in all, Day 3 was a wonderful day, with cooler temperatures, no rain, and some excellent science activities enjoyed by all!!

Day 2: Marine Science Academy

Isn’t that a wonderful view to start off the day? That is the Cape Lookout Lighthouse as seen from the Local Yokel Ferry carrying a group of middle school kids across the sound to the island. We spent our second day of the camp doing a number of activities on the island. The forecast was calling for a 60% chance of rain so we tempered our expectations for how the day would go, and luckily had nothing harder than a drizzle until we boarded the ferries to head back to the mainland.

During the day, students rotated through 5 stations. We spent about 45 minutes at each station. A brief rundown of each station:

Geocaching

Our kids got a brief introduction to geocaching today. With the use of handheld GPS units, groups went out and hid camouflaged containers for another group to find. They had to find a good hiding spot, record the coordinates, give a clue and then return to our home base. There they switched their coordinates with another group who went to find the hidden cache. The containers had a second set of coordinates for a cache which I hid near the base of the lighthouse containing a log book and disposable camera for them to photograph their geocaching experience. The kids loved the freedom to roam the island and finding the “hidden treasures.”

Transecting

The next station had our students using lines and poles to collect data on the topography of a small section of the beach on the ocean side of Cape Lookout. The students collected data throughout the day and will be using this data Thursday morning to create a topographic map using Microsoft Excel in the computer lab.

Shells

Our groups also had a short discussion of various types of shells that can be found along the shores of eastern North Carolina. They saw examples of scotch bonnets, sand dollars, and whelk shells. Many students, despite living in the area their whole lives, didn’t realize that we do not have conchs living off our coast. The shells that are commonly referred to as conch shells here are actually whelks. Each student got a scotch bonnet of their own to take home as the North Carolina state shell.

Biological Sampling

Next our groups headed to a saltwater marsh area of the island to do some biological sampling. The counted snails in the marsh and will compare this number to the number they find in the man-made marsh behind the college on Thursday. They also used kick nets to sample fish and invertebrates near the island.

The final station had the kids doing some additional water quality sampling for the waters near the docks at Cape Lookout. Students collected dissolved oxygen, salinity, temperature and turbidity readings to compare to those from the water’s behind the community college.

Tomorrow we head over to the Duke Marine Lab, go trawling on the Susan B. Hudson, and take a trip over to Shackleford Banks to do some research on the wild horses of North Carolina. I’ll leave you with a picture from the ferry of a few of the horses this morning. Expect many more tomorrow!

Day 1: Marine Science Academy

Today was the first day of the 2009 Brad Sneeden Marine Science Academy.  This year we have 55 students from across Carteret and Craven Counties meeting at Carteret Community College in Morehead City, NC.  The students are all rising 7th, 8th and 9th graders who are giving up their first full week of summer for academic pursuits! The focus of this week is “Careers in the Marine Sciences”.  This is the second year of the program.

Today’s activities were located on and around the campus of Carteret Community College.  We started off the morning with an inquiry activity dealing with neutral buoyancy.  The students were asked to design a submersible that would remain in the middle of a column of water inside an aquarium.  We discussed positive and negative buoyancy, density, and the principles behind neutral buoyancy.  The students worked for nearly an hour and a half with one group finally having success.  During the activity, we took a few minutes to step back and discuss the formula for calculating density and played a quick game of “Will It Float?” a la David Letterman.  The students were quite surprised at the results from a regular Coke and a Diet Coke as well as the two large rocks (one of them being a giant pumice stone).  The student’s struggle allowed us to discuss how scientists don’t always succeed when expected and often have to rely on more than just trial and error for success.

Aquaculture

Next, we visited the Aquaculture facilities at Carteret Community College.  There students got a chance to view some of the marine animal husbandry program then headed out for some experience building oyster spat collectors.  Here our students let out some apparently pent up rage while making holes in the oyster shells for the collectors.  Other students helped fill bags with oyster shells to be used as sea walls.

NC State Seafood Laboratory

After a quick lunch, we headed over to the North Carolina State University Seafood Laboratory. At the Seafood Laboratory we split into two groups. The first group went inside to talk about fresh, summer seafood in North Carolina. We were given some information on how to determine if a fish is fresh at a market. There are a number of things to look for: slime coat, red gills, clear eyes, and no odor other than that of the ocean. We then got a look at some fresh flounder and mahi-mahi.

After some discussion of the fish and their habits along the NC seashore, we were treated to a snack of fresh fried mahi-mahi. The kids also enjoyed some Smoked Rainbow Trout jerky from the North Carolina Mountains.

After that, the group moved outside for some water sampling in the Bogue Sound. The group drew in two seine nets to examine the marine fish and invertebrates of the sound. We collected a large number of shrimp, some pinfish, a couple of cornet fish among others. There was also a chance to test water salinity, dissolved oxygen, and temperature. Students will be comparing their results from today’s Sound measurements with those they will gather tomorrow at Cape Lookout.

Carteret Community College Jet Propulsion Lab

Our final side trip for the day was over to the Jet Propulsion Lab at the community college. Here, students work on engine building and repair as well as basic boat building skills. Our first activity was a tour of one of the workshops.

The connections to all sorts of other disciplines were amazing to hear. Our guide explained how boat building involves geometry and algebra, because none of the fanciest woodworking is done at 90 degree angles. He also explained the roll of biology in the selection of woods for boat building, giving the example of teak with its natural fungicides. I was also greatly impressed with his interest in history, discussing a number of pieces of wood from boats that were 50 to 100 years old, but with wood from trees that were an additional 100 years old. We closed out this portion of the tour with a look at the computerized router. With this router, students are able to use a program much like Microsoft Publisher to design an image to be cut into a piece of wood. The router then translates the image into a series of X, Y, and Z coordinates, and makes the cuts within a few minutes. The piece below, a tribute to teachers and students everywhere, was cut in under 3 minutes.

Preparing for Cape Lookout
The day’s final activities were a look at the GPS and Transecting equipment that will be used during tomorrow’s trip to Cape Lookout. Students will participate in a geocaching activity using the GPS units. They will hide an object on the Cape, record the coordinates, and exchange their coordinates with another group who attempts to find the hidden object. The transecting equipment will be used to collect data to generate a topographic map of a section of the ocean-side beach.

Overall, I think the week is off to a wonderful start. Look for some great pictures of activities taking place tomorrow over at Cape Lookout National Seashore!

Interactive Notebooks in Science Class

In my recent year end review, I mentioned the notebooks I’ve been using in my classroom for the past three years.  Many teachers are using Interactive Notebooks based off of the social studies program History Alive.  My notebook has been based off of the efforts of numerous individuals work, as well as discussions on the now defunct IAN listserv.  The recommendations I make here are by no means the only possible ways to structure this style of notebook.  In fact, I have struggled some with the grading of the notebook the past couple of years, as you will see later.

Notebook Basics

The basic idea of the Interactive Notebook is that each topic/idea gets a two page spread of the notebook. The right hand page is for teacher directed materials.  The left hand page is for student generated processing of the class information.  For example, students may take notes on a teacher demonstration on the right hand page, drawing diagrams of the set-up, giving basic explanations of the science behind the demo, etc.  On the left hand page, students might design a magazine cover with headlines that convey the information from the demonstration.

One of the hallmarks of this style of notebook is giving students choice in their processing activities up front.  Often during the school year, teachers try to incorporate many different opportunities for students to express themselves and their knowledge.  The Interactive Notebook gives those opportunities from the very beginning.  A compiled list of processing activities is placed in the front of the notebook and students have the chance to choose which activity they will use to process the day’s material.

Hook, Line, and Sinker

For my notebook, and for many others, the idea is for students to learn science Hook, Line and Sinker. Hooks are short response questions used to direct learning as the student enters the room.  These are assigned Monday – Thursday in my class with Friday being a time to go back through the week’s work checking for anything missing.  Hooks are answered in 2 to 3 sentences and may review the previous day’s work, activitate prior knowledge for upcoming topics, or just serve as a launching point for discussion.

Lines are generally teacher directed and may include lab data collection, lecture notes, notes on readings, a current event article, graphic organizer or other class activity.  They should be varied and reach out to the multiple intelligences of your students, but Lines are the primary way of presenting/documenting class information.

Sinkers are the student selected processing activities. The list at the front of the notebook provides a launching point for student choice.  I always took the first few weeks of school to go through a number of the activities, even assigning a couple of them early on.  This gave us the chance to discuss what activities worked for different kinds of information.  Sinkers are the “meaning-making” activities that help students show they have an understanding of the topics covered in class.  They provide extension, review, and reflection on the topics covered in class.

Sinker Activities

By no means is this a comprehensive list, but here are some examples of Sinker Activities used in my notebook:

• Current Event summary – find and article related to class discussion
• Illustrations
• Concept Maps/Mind Maps
• Invitation – to an event in science history
• Acrostic Poems
• Haiku – recommend at least three if this is the only Sinker incorporated
• Song Lyrics
• Letter to an absent student
• Mnemonic device
• Textbook reading/questions if not assigned (I normally provide suggested text readings to supplement class activities and rarely assign text questions, but they work for some kids)
• Biographical Poem – similar to Haiku in that they are structured line by line
• Comic Strip
• Magazine Cover
• V3 (Visual, Verbal, Vocabulary) – pick some vocab. from the days lesson, define it, use it in a sentence, and draw a picture to represent the term

I know these are not all that I use, but these are the main ones students choose to use.  I also encourage students to combine ideas above, using Haiku on their Magazine Cover’s for example.  You will see, the activities are heavily weighted toward visual/spatial and linguistic intelligences as they are drawing and writing intensive.  For this reason, I’ve stressed song lyrics, letters to other students, etc which tap into some of the other intelligences not normally brought out with our Sinkers.  The key is student choice, which allows them the opportunity to process information in a way that is relevant and useful for them.

Other Features

The last page of the notebook is set aside as a place for students to log parent views of their notebook.  I normally require at least one per nine weeks. The student must show/explain something in the notebook to their parent, who then signs the log.  This helps keep open that line of communication for what is going on in the classroom.

One of the first activities I do with my students is give them a copy of the state Standard Course of Study for our grade level/subject.  They are asked to read through it and do an activity called “What Does It Mean?”  This gives them an immediate preview of what we will be covering during the school year, allows them to pre-determine some questions they may have, and gives them insight into just what the state says my job is as a 7th grade science teacher.

Though I’m terrible about doing this, a number of Interactive Notebook users reserve the bottom couple of lines on either the Line or Sinker page for a summary of the day’s lesson.  This gives students summarization practice, reflection practice, and gives them a quick place to look for an overview of that day’s notes.

The notebook lends itself well to discussing different note-taking strategies. In the past, I have discussed with my students how to take many different forms of notes:

• Outline form book notes
• Cornell notes
• Notes using Concept Maps
• SQ3R reading notes (Survey, Question, Read, Respond, Reflect)

Many students have never been taught any note-taking strategies, let alone given suggestions for how to use them in multiple situations.  Although I don’t want to be a “lecturing, note-giving” teacher, it is important for students to realize they have some options when they run into those types of teachers.

Organization, organization, organization.

One of the main reasons I went to Interactive Notebooks in the first place was my frustration with students using “lose-leaf paper”.  I found that they only thing it was good for was falling out of notebooks and winding up in the trashcan.  For my class, students have to have a 5 subject notebook with a plastic cover.  The goal is for it to last until the end of the year.  I’ve only had 1 or 2 students in the 3 years I have done this who used notebooks without a plastic cover and still had it in one piece at the end of the year.  This year, I may experiment with a 3 subject notebook as they are a little cheaper and I haven’t used all 5 sections the past two years.

How do students keep other papers in the notebook?  Lots and lots of glue…I keep the gluestick companies in business during the school year.  I always purchase somewhere around 100 gluesticks for the year when they are on sale before school starts.  Students are asked to have their own as well.  Any paper that goes in the notebook is one sided and is glued in on a specific page.  We keep a table of contents at the front and (here’s where I’m a real stickler) everyone must have things on the same page.  This allows me to tell them exactly where something should be in their notebook, as well as easily see if something is missing.  The students get used to gluing fairly quickly as the first week or so we glue in about 12 or 13 pages which include notebook rules, rubric, Standard Course of Study, and Sinker Activities.

Grading

Here is the issue I’m having most with my notebooks.  I started off using a variation of a rubric I found online.  There were 10 categories: Table of Contents, Hooks, Lines, Sinkers, Color, Answers to Essential Questions, Title Pages, Neatness, Organization, and Page Setup.  I used this the first year and then realized I hated it.  This is largely due to my shift in thinking on grading.  If a grade is to be an accurate representation of what my students know and are able to do in science, how does color, neatness, page setup, and table of contents have anything to do with their knowledge of science?  As I have moved forward with the notebook, it has become somewhat difficult for me to even justify grading their Line activities as there is no standard in NC Science for “note-taking”.  What I have moved toward this year is the use of the notebook as a “toolbox” to answer questions related to science.  At the end of each 9 weeks, I administer a notebook test that is largely multiple choice (in fact, I used the Senteo response system several times).  Though I’m not necessarily into multiple guess tests, it seems to work in this situation.  The students get to use their notebook to respond to the questions on the test.  In this way, students who are not wonderful at keeping up with the notebook, but still learn the content can show that, as well as those who are able to keep track of the information and retrieve it from their notebook.  Still not a perfect situation, but moving more in the direction I’m interested in.

How many others out there are using Interactive Notebooks in their classrooms? I’d love to hear your reflections, thoughts, challenges, etc.  Feel free to rip apart anything I’ve said above as well 🙂

2008-2009: A School Year in Review

Today marks the final day in my classroom for the 2008-2009 school year. Still being a relative newbie to the profession, I’m finishing my 5th year. I thought I would take a little time to reflect on some of the things I did in my classroom this year and use this as a launching point for ideas for next year. Feel free to make suggestions, critiques, etc as I’m always looking to improve my teaching.

• This was my 5th year working in 7th grade science. My team was the same this year as last and the continuity makes life much easier. We will be working with a new language arts teacher next year, though I think the move will be a good fit.
• Notebooks – I spent much less time with my notebooks this year than the previous years. I still like the idea of an interactive notebook but I think I need to make a few tweaks to the way I use it in my actual classroom. With my notebook, students have about 20 activities they can choose from to process the things we do in class. I think next year, I want to make my list a bit more focused. One thing I’ve intended all along is to have examples of each of the activities to show my students. I may use that as a launching point next year, designing an activity that would require a class of students to use each of the 20 activities to process the same information as examples. These examples could then be posted to my class blog for future reference.
• Service Project – this was my 3rd year with the service project, and my first year not to eclipse the 1,000 hour mark. My students completed about 950 hours of service, and I’m certain that a few completed the service but not the reflection. If those additional students had finished the reflection, we probably would have had 1,000 hours. This year I opened up the service project reflection to more interpretation, allowing students to complete the 11 reflection questions in multiple ways. I had presentation boards, notebooks, PowerPoint presentations, and 2 wiki entries. I’m hoping to encourage more variety in reflections next year.
• Projects – During the final 9 weeks of the school year, I took a more project-based outlook on my classroom. We studied genetics through building Reebops, which we then went out and did a quick population genetics study while finding them in their “natural habitat” using the school’s GPS units. I had my students build paper roller coasters during our Physics unit and participated in the Pringles Challenge. The excitement generated by these projects helped propel my students forward in their studies. I have always included projects in my class, but never in such a “back to back” manner. Though many days were exhausting, there were also days where I enjoyed some freedom to float from group to group as students had the basics under their belts and were able to work independently. I’m hoping to incorporate more projects next year, but also to make sure I wrap back around to the basic skills and understandings students should gain from the experience. While many students enjoyed the projects, I feel I had some that enjoyed them simply because they were different and did not develop a deep understanding of the content upon which the projects were based.
• Technology – This is a constant battle for me. I am a tech aficionado and want to instill that love in my students as well. I’m constantly trying out new pieces of tech, websites, etc with my students and this year was no different. The biggest difference this year was the use of my classroom wiki. Students had accounts and were able to post class notes, article summaries, etc. We discussed hyperlinking, something new to a majority of our students. Students also learned the Ctrl+V, Ctrl+C shortcuts for pasting and copying, a simple thing but something of which they were unaware. My goal is always to integrate tech as seamlessly as possible, and the wiki definitely helped with that task. Additionally, this year we received an Acer Aspire One for our classroom through the Acer Seed Program. The daily availability of a computer increased my student’s exposure to online programs. Next year I intend to use the Aspire One to have a student take class notes on the wiki each day. Each subsequent class will have a student adding images, videos, etc to the previous class’ notes.
• Twitter – In November, I began developing my Personal Learning Network through Twitter after attending a day-long training with Will Richardson. Doubtless, a number of you are here because you are part of my PLN. I cannot think of a single activity that has had more impact on my learning than daily interactions with my PLN. The power of Twitter as a learning tool is impossible to overstate. The issue comes with taking time to grow and develop a network. @kellyhines has a ridiculous ability to follow over 1,000 people, and I’m struggling at just under 100. I think I’m going to attempt to keep my Twitter stream fairly focused over the course of the summer, adding those that directly improve my science and tech focus, but not going overboard. Many, many thanks to all of you who have shared your thoughts and learning with me over Twitter this year.
• Professional Blog – After my Twitter conversion, I decided I had thoughts longer than 140 characters that I wanted to share as well. This blog was born during a discussion about what Technology Literacy really meant that brought together many educators across the globe to attempt to hash out whether or not there was a separate literacy being discussed in regards to technology or if it was merely a separate “container” for the same literacy skills. In a half-joking Tweet to Ben Grey, I mentioned perhaps we should call it “technoracy” similar to the way number sense is known as numeracy. And thus The Technorate Teacher was born. Over the past several months, I’ve ruminated on technology, educational games, blogged a Middle Grades education conference (a wonderful experience to say the least) and discussed the merits of netbooks. I look forward to the future of this blog and how I can learn from others through it’s use.
• SmartBoard/Senteos – This year was my second year with a SmartBoard in my classroom full time. It was also a year in which I became far more comfortable letting the students guide the use of the SmartBoard. Next year I hope to develop this further by having the students generate more of the content in Smart Notebook. We also received a team set of Senteo Response Clickers this year which stayed in my room most of the time. These worked well for getting some quick feedback from students as well as the occasional quiz. I’m looking to use these more on an informal assessment level next year as well as for pre-assessments.
• Fair Isn’t Always Equal – Rick Wormel’s work on fair grading practices was a focus for our entire school this year and continues to stretch my thinking on grading and assessment. This year, I was more cognizant of my percentages for each type of assignment in my classroom.  Homework and classwork were reduced to 10% of the grade in my class. Projects and tests were given greater weight, and my notebook was decreased in weight somewhat.  Next year I hope to further increase the focus on final indicators of mastery rather than grading those formative learning experiences.  This will require me to shift my focus to one that includes more focused assessment.  See Standards Based Grading below under Moving Forward.
• National Board Certification – In November, I found out that I passed my National Board Certification process.  This was a wonderful culmination to the hours I put in for the process last school year.  I can indeed say that National Board’s are everything people say! It was one of the most intense experiences of my academic career.  The process of reflecting on my teaching was an informative one and the amount of time that went into that reflection was well worth the effort.  Many thanks to all those who supported me in this effort.
• Staff development – This year I had two opportunities to work with our entire staff on technology professional development.  During those experiences, we discussed using blogs for teacher/classroom webpages and how to verify information in a digital world.  The staff was very receptive to both experiences and I look forward to doing more work with them in the future, starting with our Tech in 20 program next year.

Moving Forward

• Edmodo – Moving into next year, one of the things I want to attempt is the use of Edmodo for classroom communication.  For those who are not familiar with the service Edmodo is a closed Twitter-like service that allows teachers and students to communicate.  Users can share links, information, videos, etc and receive notifications via SMS Text message.  I think a controlled effort to develop a network similar to a PLN will go a long way toward showing my students how to find people who can help them learn what they need to know in the future.
• Student Blogs – Also next year, I’m looking into using student blogs for the purpose of digital portfolios, keeping up with current events, and seeking out connections with other students in similar classes.  After talking with our new language arts teacher for next year, I feel like the support is there to use the blogs across multiple classes, so this will be an important step going forward.  I’m still looking for suggestions on which service people prefer: EduBlogs or 21 Classes? Any thoughts or reflections are greatly welcomed!
• Tech Activities list like activities for my notebook – Along with the blogs, I want to create a list of possible technology activities that students can use to process the work we are doing in class.  These would be activities that can be embedded in their blogs to show their understanding. For example, I know there are a number of comic strip generators out there that students could use to create comics for topics discussed in class. Additionally, students could create podcasts or short screencasts to explain information. These are ideas I want to introduce early in the year, and allow students to pull from throughout the school year rather than focusing a specific project on each one.
• More Projects/PBL/Labs – I have often felt that I needed to incorporate more projects and labs into my classroom as there are frequently times when I’m in a section where these don’t come up as often.  Next year, I hope to find a number of labs/projects that will fit into some of these “low points” and create a sense of frequent use of labs and projects.  I also want to come up with more activities that allow my students to explore the world outside of the classroom.  The GPS project with our Reebops earlier this year allowed the students the freedom to roam a contained area of our campus and one student remarked at the end of the experience he had just had the best week ever: “I got to make stuff, eat stuff, and go outside…it was awesome!”  Remembering back to my own 7th grade experience, I have to think I would have agreed with him.
• Standards Based Grading – As part of my focus on grading and assessment, I want to continue to move toward a Standards-Based grading practice.  For me, I think this will entail coming up with one or two specific indicators of master for each standard in a unit I teach.  Students would have the opportunity to complete either of those indicators (whether they be a test, project, presentation, video, etc) and would get credit for mastering that objective.  I’m not sure how this fits into the overall view of a grade in my class, as the goal is for all students to show understanding of all standards.  How does one break down the meaning of an A, B, C, D or F in that situation?  This is still an issue I have to tackle and come up with an answer for before I can fully dive into this practice.

There you have it…my year in review for 2008-2009. It has been a whirlwind of a year, but I am excited about next year and the possibilities a new teammate and new students bring!

Local Newspaper Justifies Relevance

The following is a reprint of an editorial run in the June 1st issue of the New Bern Sun Journal which at the time of this post was unavailable online.  On June 1st, the Sun Journal introduced its’ new format: a smaller size with fewer pages, and approximately the same number of ads.

Newspaper for a new day, with many days ahead

More comfortable telling a story, newspapers have found themselves of late in the sometimes uncomfortable position of being the story.

The usual narrative, especially as reported in the electronic media, suggests that readers’ reliance on the Internet and economic pressures related to the recession have pushed newspapers to the edge of financial disaster. But here’s the view from the inside: Forward-thinking newspapers — and we like to number the Sun Journal among them — stand not on the edge of disaster but on the edge of a new day.

We submit that this edition of the Sun Journal, the debut of a dramatically new format better suited to the pace of modern life, helps make that point. At the same time that we believe newspapers must become news providers, serving readers and advertisers across multiple platforms, we also believe in the future of this product we call ink-on-paper. This new newspaper represents an investment in that future and a commitment to readers who share that belief, as well as those who may come to share it.

The paper you’re holding was made possible by the installation of a new $2 million press at a consolidated printing plan owned by Freedom ENC Communications, the regional media group to which the Sun Journal belongs. As of Sunday night, Freedom ENC began prininig all its publications at this plant in Jacksonville. That change brings with it some business benefits, but it also allows us to produce the best looking, most colorful, most reader-friendly Sun Journal ever.

And “ever” is a long time for a company with roots to 1876. As with many newspapers, tradition is a touchstone at the Sun Journal, and tradition informs our view of the future. In essence, we know enough to trad on our strengths — our knowledge of the community, our ability to gather and disseminate news and information for and about it, our ability to produce an advertising message that resonates with consumers.

These strengths mean newspapers still have value for people who want to be well informed. For many, they remain an essential part of daily life, even as life seems to change daily. Some statistics compiled by the Newspaper Association of America belie the doom-and-gloom predictions that might lead readers to think otherwise.

For instance, more than 104 million adults read a print newspaper every day and more than 115 million on Sunday. The typical audience for TV’s late local news: 65 million.

Average weekday newspaper readership declined a scant 1.8 percent between 2007 and 2008. That compares well to the 10 percent decline seen in the primetime TV audience in 2007.

In an average week, 61 percent of 18-24 year olds and 25-34 year olds read a newspaper. Sixty-five percent of them read a newspaper or visited a newspaper Web site in the past week.

Nothing in those numbers invites complacency, of course, but the Sun Journal has not lasted for 130 years by refusing to adapt, by failing to recognize opportunities. It has evolved from a weekly newspaper printed on a sheet smaller than this to the broad black-and-white edition that our older readers grew up with to the lively paper you read today.

This then is a newspaper for a new day, brought to you by a newspaper company that, with the continued support of its readers and advertisers, has many days ahead of it.

To me this reaks of an industry trying to maintain relevance in a media landscape leaving them behind.  This feeling is partially related to the fact that I now pay the same price for less news, more ads (by percentage of page), and sadly, text that is far less clear (at least in this first edition).  Honestly, I think I read the newspaper an average of 1 per week, being one of those who prefers to get my news from the Internet.  The local paper however does provide that “local flavor” of the news that is often hard to track online. In light of Clay Shirky’s post about Thinking the Unthinkable I feel like our local paper is grasping at straws to remain relevant.

I would love to hear your comments, or see you Diigo up the reprint of the article above.