1. By: Melissa Anderton & Courtney Damron
What’s In Your ISN?
By: Melissa Anderton & Courtney Damron

2. Have you ever heard your students say . . .
I can't find my . . .
notes, homework, handouts . . .
I can't remember what
we did in class yesterday.
I'm sure its in . . .
my desk...
my book bag . . .
my room . . .
I was absent, did I miss anything?

3. HELP THEM
GET IT TOGETHER
WITH THE ISN!

4. What is the purpose of an Interactive Notebook?
The purpose of this interactive notebook is to enable students to be creative, independent thinkers and writers.
Interactive notebooks are used for class notes as well as for other activities where students are asked to express their own ideas and process the information presented in class.

5. Interactive Notebooks…
Organize the student
Help students sequence assignments
Encourage pride in student work
Facilitate cooperative interaction
Appeal to multiple intelligences
Provide opportunities to spiral instruction and facilitate learning
Formative & Summative

6. Students can… Transform written concepts into visuals
Find main points of a lesson or concept
Organize historical events into a topical map
Draw whatever illustration that makes sense to them
Personalize the historic event or lesson.

7. This process…. Can be challenging Takes patience
Requires modeling, modeling, modeling
Must consistently be reinforced
Requires high expectations of students
Takes time to learn for both the teacher and for the students to develop their own style.

8. Left Side – Right Side Orientation
The Left side is “left” for students. This is the side that students can use to demonstrate their own understanding & creativity.
Allows various learning styles to process information
Requires students to actively do something with the information to internalize it
The Right side is “Restricted” and contains teacher guided notes such as cornell notes, foldables, graphic organizers, etc...
An opportunity for teachers to model how to think graphically.
This information should be regarded as “testable” and should be structured so that key ideas and concepts are clear.

9. Teacher-Directed learning
How is it organized?
Left Side
Student Output
Learning objectives
Essential questions
I will and we will statements
Brainstorming
Making connections
Summarizing
Making conclusions
Practice problems
Opinions
Questions
Mnemonics
Right Side
Teacher-Directed learning
Vocabulary and Definitions
Foldables
Mini-lessons
Steps in a process
Example problems
Notes
Diagrams
Graphic organizers
Hints and tips
Big ideas
Handouts

10. Components of ISN Personalized cover page Rubric Resource page
Table of contents
I will/we will statements
Vocabulary
Notes/Activities
Foldables
Pockets
Student reflection
Critical Writing

11. Types of notes/activities/foldables
Drawings
Poetry
Raps
Graphic organizers
Cartoons
Maps
Charts and graphs
Invitations
Letters
ANYTHING!!!

12. Note taking becomes an active process
Students will take notes— it’s fun! 
Students will read their notes—they have to in order to process for the left side
Students will be working with (rehearsing) the information which facilitates learning
Students will actively be involved with the information
What do students think about it?

13. Why use them?
Students use both their visual and linguistic intelligences
Approach understanding in many ways
Use many types of writing and graphic techniques
Each student can select their best medium to explore and learn new content
(DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION!!!!)

14. Notebooks help students to systematically organize as they learn
Organization is key to the notebook
Concepts like
Table of Contents
Numbering pages
Topic headings
They stress the organization of a book & they don’t lose papers 

15. Notebooks become a portfolio of individual learning
These are personal
Creative
They record student growth
They show progress
They serve as a chronological record of the learning and are great for review

16. What to do if a student is absent?
Copy from teacher notes.
Have a student complete notes for absent student.
Post notes on your teacher page where students could copy from there.

17. Getting Started…

18. What materials do I need?
Journal, spiral, or composition notebook
Glue or tape
Markers, crayons, colored pencils, etc.
Scissors if needed
Notes/foldables
Pens/pencils

19. Interactive Notebook Implementation
Bring it to class every day. It will not be in your best interest to lose it.
Number the pages sequentially. Do not remove any pages. Both right and left pages should be numbered. It is important that all of us have the same information on the same page.
The first pages are reserved for a cover page, table of contents, and resource pages.
Use color to help organize your information.
Handouts, foldables and other papers should be glued or taped in place. No staples.
You will need other supplies: markers, glue stick, tape, ruler, pencils, colored pencils
Notebooks will be graded randomly using self, peer and teacher checklists.

20. Lets Begin….
Have students save 5-10 pages at the front of the notebook to house information about notebook (rubrics,syllabus), and the cumulative table of contents.
Have them number the pages immediately so that they start in an organized fashion.
Number each page front and back
Odd pages on right and Even pages on the left.
There will be no blank pages
Pages do not get torn out!!!

21. Types of Cover Pages

24. Resource Pages

25. Table of Contents: Page Topic Date 14 Order of Operations 8/14 15
Slope and y-intercept 16 17 18 19 20

26. Student Handouts The notebook should hold everything when possible
Folding and gluing, cutting and gluing are key to organization
As students age and material becomes too complex a separate folder (pocket folder) can be added to hold handouts that are multi-paged or make a pocket foldable

27. Acrostics

28. Comic Strips

29. Venns & Thinking Maps

35. Vocabulary Activity Take your paper and turn it horizontally.
Pick 1 vocabulary word from your content area and write it horizontally on the paper.
For each letter, write a word that relates to your vocabulary word.