Revisiting the Interactive Notebook: A Path to Meaning Making

Revisiting the Interactive Notebook: A Path to Meaning Making

When I encountered Interactive Student Notebooks at National Science Teacher’s Association several years ago, it showed me a framework from which to manage my science classroom in a whole new way.  It was the organizational tool my students and I needed.  While it gave structure to content, it required students to interact with the content to create meaning for themselves.  It forced us to delve deeper into concepts and develop meaning to the labs and activities we had done in class.  It was a lot of work for the students but that is the strength of using this method.

In practice, more than half the pages in the interactive notebook were student generated. I’m concerned with what I see in many of the resources called “Interactive Notebook”.  They seem to be mostly teacher generated with a focus on cutting and pasting “foldable” type organizers.  While these may appeal to teachers, I wonder how much it really does for students.  The interactive notebook should be a tool for meaning-making, not an end in itself.  When making the decision to incorporate interactive notebooks into your classroom, seriously considered the level of work the student is doing.  Here are some recommendations.