Interactive Student Notebook
Many student notebooks are scantly organized repositories of information filled with uninspired, unconnected, and poorly understood ideas. Interactive Student Notebooks, however, allow students to record information in an engaging way. As students learn new ideas, they use several types of writing and innovative graphic techniques to record and process them. Students use critical-thinking skills to organize information and ponder historical questions, which promotes creative and independent thinking. In Interactive Student Notebooks, key ideas are underlined in color or highlighted; Venn diagrams show relationships; cartoon sketches show people and events; timelines illustrate chronology; indentations and bullets indicate subordination; arrows show cause-and-effect relationships. Students develop graphical thinking skills and are often more motivated to explore and express high-level concepts.
1. Make sure students have appropriate materials.
To create Interactive Student Notebooks, students must bring these materials to class each day:
- an 8 1/2-by-11-inch spiral-bound notebook, with at least 200 pages
- a pen
- a pencil with an eraser
- two felt-tip pens of different colors
- two highlighters of different colors
- a container for all of these (purse, backpack, vinyl packet)
2. Have student's record class notes on the right side of the notebook.
The right side of the notebook—the "input" side—is used for recording class notes, discussion notes, and reading notes. Typically, all "test" information is found here. Literature background information can be organized in the form of traditional outline notes.
However, the right side of the notebook is also an excellent place for the teacher to model how to think graphically by using illustrated outlines, flow charts, annotated slides, T-charts, and other graphic organizers. There are many visual ways to organize information that enhance understanding. The right side of the notebook is where the teacher organizes a common set of information that all students must know.
3. Have student's process information on the left side of the notebook.
The left side—the "output" side—is primarily used for processing new ideas. Students work out an understanding of new material by using illustrations, diagrams, flow charts, poetry, colors, matrices, cartoons, and the like. Students explore their opinions and clarify their values on controversial issues, wonder about "what if" hypothetical situations, and ask questions about new ideas. And they review what they have learned and preview what they will learn. By doing so, students are encouraged to see how individual lessons fit into the larger context of a unit and to work with and process the information in ways that help them better understand history. The left side of the notebook stresses that writing down lecture notes does not mean students have learned the information. They must actively do something with the information before they internalize it.
Here is a simple example of the right-side, left-side orientation of the Interactive Student Notebook in action. The student began by taking class notes on late nineteenth-century industrialism on the right side of her notebook and then, for homework, completed a topical net on the corresponding left side using information from her class notes.
Concept sketches
Concept sketches (different from concept maps) are sketches or diagram that are concisely annotated with short statements that describe the processes, concepts, and interrelationships shown in the sketch. Having students generate their own concept sketches is a powerful way for students to process concepts and convey them to others. Concept sketches can be used as preparation for class, as an in-class activity, or as an assessment tool.
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