Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

I was at a conference once and they told us about using clock partners to team up students in the class. The concept is that students walk around and set an appointment time with other students and record their appointment on their clock (example: I go to you and ask if you have a five o'clock open. You tell me yes and I write your name in for 5 p.m. and you write my name in your 5 p.m. slot). You can specify that you can only list a persons name once or you must have equal number of boys and girls to keep it fair. I found a template on the internet and recreated it on my own (feel free to email me if you want me to send it to you). I had my students get their clock partners at the beginning of the year and they glued it to the back inside cover of their science notebook. If I need to group students I just say, "Get with your two o'clock partner" and they know what to do. I don't use them as often as I should. I've been trying to correct this recently. The ot...

I read somewhere to shrink handouts to fit the notebook you need to set your copier to reduce and hit 85%. I had never actually put this to the test. I did the other day and the picture above was the result. I still had to trim and I am actually thinking that 80% would probably have been better. Then I could have cut the sheets above in half and put them together on the copier to run a full sheet of paper with a copy of the worksheet on both halves (thus saving paper). Also....and this just occured to me typing this...since one side is always glued to the notebook you could recyle paper pretty easily. I always request scrap paper in the copier room and I could easily run the blank side through the copier and glue the unwanted side down in the notebook. Mmmm....might have to try that this week.

For any South Carolinians ....the University of South Carolina, Beaufort campus ( USCB ) is holding a local teacher share fair this weekend (January 24, 2009) in the Hargray Building from 9:30 - 11:00 a.m. I will be presenting my notebooks and several other teachers from around the county will be presenting ideas from their classroom. Anyone in the area is welcome to attend. This is the first of its kind and I think it will be a learning experience for the University and the teachers attending. I am hoping that there is a good response and the University considers more of these share fairs in the future.

This was my version of a flow chart of sorts using the process of photosynthesis. Students had to create, in picture and words, an eight panel flow chart that detailed the process of photosynthesis. As a group we broke down all the steps into eight possible panels and students were required to write the steps we had come up with and draw a picture to show what was happening in each step. I have not used this in my elementary class yet but most likely will when we get to our electricity unit (a flow chart explaining how electricity is made and gets to your home).

Another good right hand assignment idea is the use of webs. In the picture above we were talking about the five characteristics that all animals share. I instructed the students to create a web using words and pictures addressing all five characteristics. (The left hand assignment students had to answer a series of questions from their text addressing those five characteristics). If you need to differentiate instruction the web can be done as a group on the board. You can ask for volunteers to give you the words and have folks come up and draw the pictures. Students then copy it into their book. To differentiate a textbook search list the page number the student can find the information and make sure that all questions are in order of how the student will find it in the textbook.

I have an interactive white board in my classroom but the bulk of this year and all of last year I used an overhead projector. I would draw samples of what pages were to look like the old fashioned way. I was excited about using the white boards and was thinking it might be nice to scan in notebook pages to show students examples of how things were done (i.e. title page, concept maps, etc.). I never used the scanner feature instead I got an idea off of www.classroom20.com that suggested using a webcam as a cheap document reader. Just point the webcam at a sample page and it will project onto your board. We have a couple of webcams and I have used it for this. Webcams are also very inexpensive to purchase (under $40).

Last year I saw another sixth grade teacher who kept a teacher copy of the students notebook with notes about how the activities ran, modifications she would use next year, etc. I thought it was a great idea. However, as good plans often go...I found I didn't update it like I should. Still the idea had merit. I tried again this year (fourth grade) and I have been much better about gluing in sheets to my teacher notebook but have been lacking in the note taking department (one year I will get it all right!). My mistake in studiously maintaining my teacher notebook this year is that I glued ahead what I was going to do with students. Turns out I have had to adjust several times and have not used certain lab sheets and others with students that were now in my notebook. This has been driving me insane since now my teacher copy does not match the students copy for this year (oh well!). I figure I learned the hard way not to glue ahead :)