Sunday, March 23, 2014

Interactive Notebooks

Have you heard of these?  Thanks to Pinterest, I found these gems that have really helped my students.  I just started them in the last couple of weeks, but I've never seen the success with learning AR verbs that I'm seeing from my level one students now.  Usually it takes a while to get the students to catch on, especially with the second and third person forms when subject pronouns are not given.  However, since implementing these notebooks with a foldable AR verbs page last week, I'm seeing a vast improvement on previous years' retention and understanding.  I don't have "better" kids this year, in fact my students this year have proven to be more of a challenge than previous years.  I'm in awe over this right now.  


If you don't know what an interactive notebook is, it's just a composition book that the students use to record notes, practice, vocabulary, etc.  However, it makes great use of color coding things, using foldables, and some (not mine) even focus on left/right side brain functions.  My students are notorious for losing their packets (since I don't really use a textbook) and coming to class with nothing, not even a pen or pencil.  Since last summer, I'd been eyeing up Interactive Notebooks but thought they were too much of an elementary concept.  Finally, a couple of weeks ago it dawned on me that I could use them with my Spanish I classes because what they're really learning is elementary level communication in another language.  So, at the start of the new chapter, we inputted a few important things including chapter vocabulary and a few key verbs (since we didn't start this at the beginning of the year) and then I began my instruction on AR verbs.  When I saw my kids using their AR verbs foldable to complete their work CORRECTLY, I knew I was onto something.  In fact, I wasn't planning on it, but I also introduced it to my Spanish II as well because it's working so well for my Spanish I classes.

Now, let me just say that there are a lot of teachers out there who probably think I should be doing more input based teaching and not necessarily focus on the correct grammar.  I get that and I wish I could.  However, the way my district is set up, this is how we're teaching and this is what works for our kids.  I've tried to sneak in more TPRS based learning and other popular teaching methods, but in a district like mine, it hasn't been working.  So, this is what works for me.  I love activities that get my students to use the language, but when we're just learning how to do something, these Interactive Notebooks are what I've found to be a huge helper.  Do you use Interactive Notebooks?  If you do, please share your experience in the comments section and let me know if you'd like to see more of mine.


12 comments:

  1. Hey Cherin! These look really great! I am just wondering if you have had trouble with students misspelling or miscopying information with the interactive notebooks? I tried something similar a few years ago and decided to let it go because of 1) the time it took to copy things that I could spend on activities 2) the number of errors in copying 3) students not being able to pay attention to an explanation while copying. Perhaps I should try this again?!?

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    1. Hi Holly! I have found that inputting the material takes SOOO much longer, BUT, my kids do know the material better because of the time we spend introducing it and then the time they spend using their books as we do the activities that follow. I've always done an interactive form of notes (used to be fill in the blank style) because I've found that if I just give them the notes, they don't pay any mind to it and don't know what to do. In terms of errors, I do wind up walking around and checking while they're inputting which helps to eliminate most errors. There are always going to be a few, but when we keep calling back to the notebooks, those with errors generally fix them. I had some error prone students become less error prone throughout the last half of the year when we used the notebooks. I've just found that I've had to slow myself down a lot more than I used to when giving the notes. Notes often took half to a full class period to complete, but in the long run, I am okay with that if that means they're going to understand better. I plan on putting more posts on the notebooks up as soon as I can find mine to get some pics. I brought it home from school and can't find it, lol. Stay tuned...

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    2. I don't do interactive notebooks (maybe one day...) but I do make my students COPY the vocabulary list in their Spanish binders. First they copy. Then we pronounce. Then I try to explain (in Spanish as much as possible) the meaning and/or give an example. Plus we try to make connections with English vocab words. For example: my Spanish 3 class had the word 'locutor' now they know that word in Spanish AND loquacious in English. I even have a word wall. I know that making them copy it vocab that they already have in other resources is a little "old fashioned" but I truly believe that the act of writing it down helps them remember. I agree with you, Cherin, that if it helps them understand and retain it better in the long run it's worth it!

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  2. Hola Cherin! I am primarily a math teacher but also teach one period of French I. I used interactive notebooks with my math classes this year for the first time and was pleased overall with how valuable they were as a resource for students. This year was also my first year teaching French. My French students (particularly the ones that also had me for math) asked why we weren't doing notebooks too. I didn't jump into it because I wasn't sure I could keep up with everything but I'm ready to do them next year. I have one big question that has me stalled and haven't found many people teaching foreign languages with interactive notebooks. How did you organize the notebook as a whole (or how would you in the future)? I'm trying to decide whether I want to label thematic units/chapters or divide it into sections based on verbs, other grammar, vocab, etc. I'm leaning towards organizing by unit but I'm not sure. I think it will be artificial to try to separate out what is grammar from what is vocabulary as the two are so intertwined, but I also think it would help students to have all their verbs in one place.

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    1. Hi Kathryn! Thank you so much for your comment. I honestly don't really have an answer for you as the whole interactive notebook is still a work in progress for me. However, what I can tell you is that I do not section off my notebook. I don't even do the left right thing that many do. I know what you mean about wanting verbs to be together, vocabulary, etc. However, I found that just going by chapters and keeping a running table of contents has been the beneficial part for my kids. I'd love to create an overall glossary, but I won't be able to do something like that until after we've completed a year's worth (instead of half of a year) of notebooks so I can see approximately how much vocabulary there really is when it is written out. But then again, it wouldn't be alphabetical that way which really makes it useless. So, I'll likely just stick to what I did last year which was just do it as shown in the photos. When my students made use of the table of contents to find vocabulary, all I needed to do was tell them which chapter it came from and they were able to find it in their books. If/when we go to units rather than long, comprehensive vocabulary from textbooks chapters, then it should be less difficult for them to figure out which chapter the words come from). I hope that helps. :)

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    2. Thanks for your insight. You've convinced me to just go in the order I'll teach topics and not try to group vocabulary and grammar. :)

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    3. Good luck! Let me know how it goes. :)

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  3. Could you show me a picture of your pronoun and Articles pages? I am trying to see how to make these words relevant to my students so that they remember them quickly and painlessly. I love what you have done with all your pages. I would not mind paying to see all your pages. Thank you. Marilyn in Texas geneva1599@juno.com

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    1. Hi Marilyn. Right now they're not really ready. Once I get to them, I'll be happy to post, but what I did last year may vary from what I'm doing this year. Stay tuned! :)

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  4. Hi, I work in a similarly structured district and think this is a great idea. It's only September and I am seeing now that they will not keep up with binders. Any suggestions on easing them into using the foldables idea? I am a first year teacher and to be honest I think a lot of parents would be angry if I asked them to buy anything for my class because of all the pushback I got when I asked that they buy dividers. Eventually I said they can just make them out of paper because I didn't want to back down from something I had already said just because of pushy parents. Anything you could provide for future years would be great.

    Thanks,

    Elizabeth

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    1. Hi Elizabeth,

      Why don't you create the foldables out of the binders they're using? Instead of having them work with composition notebooks (which you can always do next year), just use the binders and maybe some construction paper? Last year I actually wound up going to the dollar store and getting a lot of my supplies because I didn't want to ask my parents to get materials I wasn't sure I was going to use yet. One thing I did do, however, is assign extra credit to students who brought in multiple composition books so I could give them out to students who weren't able to get them. You could also check with other teachers in your building to see if they have extra supplies they're not using. I hope that helps and feel free to email me for any help along the way - sra.szul@gmail.com

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  5. This is a great idea. You don't have to defend yourself for using it. TPRS is great and all but it doesn't always fit. Thank you for sharing.

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