What’s up with the notes!
Wahid Banday
Published October 2, 2021
A recent conversation with my wife triggered this blog post. We were talking about how students in the US do not use notes, at-least not the way we used to when we were in school. Growing up we had a notebook for each subject, which we wrapped neatly in brown paper at the beginning of the school year. I am sure many of us still have nightmares about forgetting a notebook that we were supposed to bring on a day! For us, notebooks served one purpose and one purpose only - they were a tool to quickly review content before an exam. In retrospect, I do not think we used notebooks correctly.
Before sharing my thoughts about what a notebook should be, I think it is important to understand what notebooks should NOT be.
Before sharing my thoughts about what a notebook should be, I think it is important to understand what notebooks should NOT be.
- Science notebooks should not be a verbatim copy of snippets from the text books. What is the point of that?
- They should also not be a verbatim copy of everything the teacher writes on the blackboard or says in the class.
At Advanced Learning Space, using notebooks (or worksheets) is an integral part of our lesson plans. Our notes are not only a tool to review and revise, but also a tool to build knowledge. Through worksheets that are custom designed for each lesson plan, our students not only capture what they know, but also how they know it.
So what should a science notebook look like? To answer that question, we first need to better understand the purpose of a notebook. I do agree, that a notebook is a great tool to quickly review content before an assessment. However, there are many other reasons for maintaining a notebook. These reasons have a major impact on how notebooks should be structured, organized and maintained - skills that we need to actively teach our students. I will explore some of these key reasons in this post.
In addition to teaching concepts, the goal of a science classroom should be to get students excited about science. A science classroom should give students a sense of what it is to “be a scientist”. Infact, working in a science classroom should make them feel like a scientist. Scientists and engineers use notebooks all the time. So why do the notebooks in schools not look like the notebooks that scientists and other professionals use? Why are we missing a great opportunity to teach our students a valuable skill of how to create and manage content?
Science is an active process that involves observing, exploring, researching, designing, investigating, building and inferring. All these phases of science are important and need to be explored in a science classroom. However, for young students, especially those who are not familiar with inquiry based learning, participating in these different phases of the scientific process can be difficult. By prescribing the use of a well designed worksheet, we can force students to verbalise and describe their observations, designs and models in detail. Using their own words to describe new content gives them an opportunity to construct their understanding rather than acquire it - a central principle of constructivism. This not only increases student engagement, but also helps improve their understanding and retention of difficult concepts.
Most of us who work in science related fields, understand the importance of documentation in communication. When dealing with a lot of data, a graph is much better than a table. When sharing a design, a diagram is much better than some text. In the real world, presentation is as important as content. Then why are we not using notebooks as an opportunity to teach students data recording, organization and presentation skills?
1. Why do the notebooks in schools not look like the notebooks that scientists and other professionals use?
2. Why are we not using notebooks as a tool to teach our students the "Process of Science"?
3. Why are we not using notebooks as an opportunity to teach students data recording, organization and presentation skills?
4. Why are we not creating opportunities, in our science classroom, that would give our students an excuse to use their notebooks as a tool of reference?
Notebooks, for professionals, are a great tool for resolving conflict. They are an invaluable tool of reference. It is much easier to support an argument if you can point to numbers, observations and comments in a notebook or a design. Again, why are we not teaching this to our kids in school? Why are we not creating opportunities, in our science classroom, that would give our students an excuse to use their notebooks as a tool of reference?
At Advanced Learning Space, using notebooks (or worksheets) is an integral part of our lesson plans. We give a lot of thought to each worksheets that we include in our lesson plans. However, it is important to understand that our notes look very different from the notes parents might be familiar with. Our notes are not only a tool to review and revise, but also a tool to build knowledge. Through worksheets that are custom designed for each lesson plan, our students not only capture what they know, but also how they know it. This is an important step that helps in long term knowledge retention and assimilation. Using our notes, students will not only find it easier to revise and remember new knowledge, they will also find it easier to apply this new knowledge in different situations. That is the ultimate purpose of learning.
At Advanced Learning Space, using notebooks (or worksheets) is an integral part of our lesson plans. We give a lot of thought to each worksheets that we include in our lesson plans. However, it is important to understand that our notes look very different from the notes parents might be familiar with. Our notes are not only a tool to review and revise, but also a tool to build knowledge. Through worksheets that are custom designed for each lesson plan, our students not only capture what they know, but also how they know it. This is an important step that helps in long term knowledge retention and assimilation. Using our notes, students will not only find it easier to revise and remember new knowledge, they will also find it easier to apply this new knowledge in different situations. That is the ultimate purpose of learning.