Interactive Notebooks

12:13 Unknown 2 Comments

This year my 7th graders and I started using interactive notebooks in our lessons. What exactly is an interactive notebook? The purpose of such a notebook is to give students the possibility to be creative as well as to develop their thinking and writing skills. These notebooks may be used not only for taking notes in class, but also for expressing their own ideas on the subject and processing the information received in class.

These notebooks have recently become popular in the USA, and some schools have even made them compulsory. Every teacher has his/her own approach to the layout of such a notebook. Most of them use the principle of "right page - left page", which you can see in the picture below.

When I first thought about creating such notebooks for my students, I realized that such a layout won't suit my needs, and so I decided to play it by ear and see how it goes.

Truth be told, I never expected that these interactive notebooks would become such a success. My students are ecstatic whenever I bring them some printouts to stick into their notebooks. It can be pretty much anything, I assume. Even the exercises taken from grammar books that were met with bored sighs and grunts earlier, now are enthusiastically completed.

I use these notebooks for additional exercises on vocabulary (crossword puzzles, word searches, unscrambling words, etc.), grammar (rules, mind mapping, exercises) and for some pre-writing activities.

I am glad to say that my students' performance and grades have significantly improved in comparison with the previous academic year.

If you want to learn more about interactive notebboks, check out the following links and videos:

Interactive Notebooks
Everybody is a genius