Interactive Social Studies Notebooks Presented by Tracee Myers Thursday, July 1, 2010 All information from today is posted on the following website: pennridgeinteractivenotebooks.wikispaces.com/ Username: pennridgess Password: pennridgess

What is an Interactive Student Notebook? (ISN) Interactive student notebooks are a place for students to store the information learned in class and then creatively process the information. It enables students to become independent thinkers and writers about the topics you teach.

What does an ISN look like? It can be a composition book, spiral notebook or for me it was just a stack of lined writing paper in the students’ binders. Everything else that is needed the students should already be bringing to school such as scissors, glue, crayons, etc…

Make Students Excited to Use Their ISN Decorate it! One option is the strategy on the front cover ◦ 5 colors ◦ 5 words ◦ 5 pictures This can be about themselves, what they remember from past years in social studies, what they think they will learn this year…you decide!!

Other options for Decorating the ISN Have students make a clip art collage in the computer lab using Pages to print out and glue to their cover Use it as homework and cut out information from magazines/newspapers Have them repeat the strategy at the end of the year on the back cover as a closure to what they’ve learned throughout the year Decorate the front with symbols to represent who you are now and the back with symbols to represent your dreams for the future

Personalize Your ISN Use the strategy to personalize your ISN Choose only 5 coloring tools, write 5 words and draw 5 pictures that represent your social studies curriculum Also include your name but that does not count as one of your 5 words Be creative!!!!

What’s on the inside of an ISN? All pages are numbered May want to leave a few blank pages in the front for students to create a table of contents An “About the Author Page” as the last page A pocket stapled on the inside front cover for unfinished work

The Left Side/Right Side Orientation All of the right (or odd numbered pages) are for information from the teacher and teacher notes. This can be notes student’s take from the lesson activities or handouts glued right into the notebook All of the left (or even numbered pages) are for students to process and reflect on the new information.

I like to think of it as… The left side (for the students) is used primarily during your anticipatory set and closure The right side (from the teacher) is used during the lesson activities

The Right Side of the Notebook All “testable” information is found here Place for recording class notes, discussion notes and notes from reading text Place for the teacher to model different graphic organizers, outlines, tcharts, flow charts, etc… Here the teacher is giving all the essential content that all students must know

The Left Side of the Notebook Students use the left side to process what they’ve learned. This can be with their own graphic organizers, illustrations, cartoons, poetry…the possibilities are endless! (See some ideas on handout) This stresses to students that they have to actually do something with all the information they’ve just learned and not simply copy it from the board and forget about it! Gives students the chance to be playful and creative while still processing what they’ve learned

Now you do some exploring… Go to the website pennridgeinteractivenotebooks.wikispaces.com and take some time to explore the first 4 links I have posted on the “Notebook Link” page to learn even more. What do you see that you like? What do you think you can use in your classroom? What is not realistic for us to do?

Using Technology with ISN…Online Journaling To differentiate or to incorporate technology, students can use the website to create a voice/picture slideshow to go along with their ISNwww.yodio.com 3 rd grade sample yodio’s: ABT3f5lzvD mSmkT02wG We did create a voice permission slip for parents to sign before we posted their voices on the internet!

Other information about ISN… Always have a master copy so students can go to it to see what they missed if they were absent Grading ISN – can create a rubric; one teacher recommended using a thumbs up stamp to stamp the corner of pages thumbs up, in the middle or thumbs down so you can quickly scan through at the end of the marking period

Get the Parents Involved Have the students bring home their notebooks and have the parents answer questions such as: "What do you think is the most important/valuable lesson for your child in this unit?” "What did you like in the notebook and why?" "What do you think could have been improved in the student's work?"

Using Picture Prompts as Anticipatory Sets in ISN Find pictures that spark students’ interest or curiosity and have them respond to the picture on the left side of their notebook. See 3 rd grade samples: 3rd grade SS picture prompts.ppt

Use the rest of the time to meet your needs… Continue to explore the websites to learn more about ISN Search google images for pictures that match your curriculum and spark students’ interest Explore the yodio website Create any documents that you might use with your future ISN

If you create any documents… I will help you post them to the notebook wikispace so you can access it when you get home and share with your colleagues.

Enjoy your summer! I hope you found this morning beneficial and learned some new things you may want to try out this year in any of the subjects you teach! If you have any questions I can help with, please me