The $1 Textbook
Monday, June 18, 2012 at 10:00AM Jonathan I’ll be upfront and say I’m not a huge fan of textbooks. They try to do too much. Plenty of other people have gone on and on about the problems, so I’ll save some space. Textbooks crafted in a tower far from any real classroom can never fulfill the needs of a real classroom, even these digital ones from the future.
An Algebra Class Uses the iPad from MindShift on Vimeo.
High school students have to be there, the state mandates it. High school students aren’t the biggest fans of math. High school students are guaranteed to lack mastery of something when they walk into your room. If it takes 10,000 hours for absolute mastery and a 15 year old has only been _awake_ 65,000 hours, I doubt they have the absolute mastery you want.
How do we build mastery? How can we encourage students to learn from their mistakes? How can we simultaneously let them work in a way that’s comfortable for them? Highlight the information that’s important to them? Give them opportunities to build a math resource they own, they create, and they value? I tell you there are very very few textbooks I have that I value. And I liked school.
Enter notebooks. I started using them when I switched to Standards Based Grading in January 2011. Part of the system is the kids need to track their progress or it doesn’t really work. When I implemented the system, I had the students all get notebooks to use for the tracking section. The problem was that was about all I was requiring them to do with the notebook. I did see a raised level of note taking but I wasn’t fully integrating them into what I was doing. I still handed out worksheets, collected worksheets, graded worksheets, and watched the worksheets go into the trash.
The Beginning
For the 2011-12 school year, I did standards based grading from the start and required notebooks from the start. In developing my Math Boot Camp I generated quite a few problem sets, most half sheets. I debated whether I should have them turned in and checked as before. But the thought occurred to me, they have all this wonderful paper to work in, why have them complete practice they can’t reference again? From then on, anything and everything that wasn’t a test was condensed to notebook size and expected to be glued/taped/stapled inside.
In the end, a student has a resource that they created, they worked on, and that’s organized in a way that suites them. Some people like math folders where hand outs and such are stuffed in, but it lacks permanence. Loose sheets of paper are easily lost and chronological order is a little tough. Plus as a teacher you’re generating a LOT of copies. For most tasks, I find a full sheet of paper per student to be overkill. Half sheets or third sheets are the perfect size for a notebook and half the copies.
It is not a perfect tool. Some of my students only did the bare minimum, took few notes, kept it messy and full of papers, or randomly scribbled economics notes in them. The goal with notebooks is to elevate the performance of the middle and get the ones at the bottom to do more than nothing. Sometimes all they need is a guiding hand in organization. If I can choose between a messy notebook or a blank desk, I choose messy notebook.
Implementation
If you want to use notebooks, as a teacher you should:
- Require a tracking system at the front for grades, assignments, whatever
- Require any assignment you have to make use of the notebook
- Adapt your material to fit inside a notebook
- Require all assignments to be completed in the notebook
- Require students to have their notebook every day
- Require students to be accountable for the material inside
Impact
After a while, some pleasant side effects will emerge. Reviewing for tests is easier, posing a question on a topic will send them flipping through the book instead of staring at you blankly. Students will get the sense they did something in your class when they see how full their book is at the end of year. Matching activities and data collection will have a place, no longer glued to some construction paper and lost. Problem sets won’t exist in isolation on some worksheet. Students will have reference material to use while completing an assignment, building a poster, or reviewing a test. Handing out a problem set will send them running for the glue without reminders. More of them will take notes. Empty desk syndrome will be a thing of the past.
If you dedicate yourself to incorporating the notebook, it will work. If the kids understand that the notebook has value, that it counts as part of their grade, and that you expect it to be used, they will. If you give up and stick with worksheets or never look at them, students will figure that out pretty fast.
If mastery is the goal, give the kids a chance to make mistakes, give them a chance to monitor their progress, and give them a reason to value what you’re teaching them.
Samples
Below are some examples of real notebooks from my students and the various ways I made use of them:
In the rush to flood the classroom with technology, sometimes analog methods are a beautiful thing.
Reader Comments (14)
I am so hammered with "examples of the miracles of iPad" that I am not completely confident I got your point - but I think the opening example of "Ms X's IPAD algebra class" (emphasis on the IPAD, of course) was ironic? What I saw in that example was an iPad being used as a textbook. Si? I see it everywhere today - the same old thing repackaged in a way that sends Apple $600 - and then a charge for the software on top of that, of course. Ay-yi.
FWIW, I love your use of the notebooks. The payoff's not just in your class, either, as I am sure you know. I teach at the intro college level (among others) and one of my biggest tasks is teaching students how to organize what they learn so it becomes a useful tool for their future. These are the kinds of learning they get in the Common Core course sequence. Sure, they need the content from my chemistry class in order to succeed in future classes, but the ability to organize and retain learning as displayed in your approach satisfies two (out of five) of my institutions Grand Learning Outcomes and those kinds of skills are harder to convey. You are doing your students a great service - they are learning math for sure, but they are developing advanced level skills that will serve them in all future activity. Nice post.
I appreciate the feedback. And yes, the video of the iPad classroom is meant to be ironic. I am getting a class set of them next year and am going to do everything I can to avoid that "silently" look at a PDF of the textbook scenario.
In your post you mention that you grade the notebook. I also noticed that you do SBG. Would you provide more detail on how you grade the notebook? Thanks so much!
Just came across your blog today and immediately became excited. I saw that exact iPad video a few days ago and was horrified by the silence in the classroom. I need my students discussing math, not simply reading/viewing it on a digital device. Good luck with the iPad integration next year: I'm interested to see how it goes and of course, hope it goes well. I'm planning on using composition notebooks next year for the exact same reasons and was happy to have a model. Furthermore, I'm researching SBG for my classroom next year and would love to know more specifics about your classroom, setup, etc. I'm going to read on! Plus, following you on twitter. me: @mr_stadel
Keep up the good work!
drulnok:
I breakdown their grade as 10% Group, 10% Notebook, 20% Tasks, and 60% Tests. The tests all come from the SBG items you noticed. Their tracking chart is the 10% Notebook grade and any work I want done gets filed under the 20% Tasks section. So 10% of their grade is literally "are you writing down your grades yes or no?" which is the easiest 10% they'll ever earn. Their assignments in the book are judged for completion more so than accuracy. I'll walk around and examine what they've done for 5-10 seconds. I leave it up to them to correct themselves when we go over it together or when they work on it. I've tried collecting the books and looking at them thoroughly, but it takes forever.
Andrew:
If you dig around in my Archive section you can see some things about how my room is set up and there's a write up about my Standards Based Grading system. I need to do a summary post though and probably highlight it somewhere. So keep an eye out for something like that soon. Once I've figured out what the curriculum is going to look like this year I'm going to see about designing iPad centered things in there. I have some basic structures in mind already. New updates push to my twitter, so just keep an eye out.
Thanks for the feedback! Feel free to ask any other questions.
I've always used 3 ring binders and had students take notes and insert papers there. What size notebooks do your students use for the year (1 subject 70 pages, 3 subject 150 pages, etc?)? Do students then carry their own glue stick/stapler/tape to insert the pages into their notebook? Thanks.
--Lisa
I don't put any requirements on the size, shape, or page length of the notebook. I'll raffle off a couple 100 page composition books just for fun, but they do not have to have books just like that. I only require that it be single subject and math only as I let them store it in my room if they want. My math department keeps glue sticks (30/box), tape, and staples in stock so I provide that for them. I think I went through 5 boxes of glue sticks this year between handouts and posters. The glue sticks are plentiful but a little low quality, so they go quick.
Great post! I've been working with interactive notebooks, much like what you've created, with my math and physics classes. The stickers on the TOC are brilliant. I've been using a date stamper to check work as we go along in class and want to add your idea. Makes logging grades much simpler, I think.
Two questions based on my experiences & challenges:
1) how do you encourage completing the table of contents/topics list? I never explicitly set aside time to fill it in and suspect that's why they were never complete, even though a complete TOC was part of the notebook grade. Aside from a, "now children, let's do our TOCs," announcement, how do you get them done?
2) my students had great resources in their notebooks but rarely went looking there for help. Can you tell me a little about how you think you fostered that (awesome) student move?
1) The table of contents must be present because it is a grade. Every three weeks I will check for it. I usually give them a day's heads up, I think maybe once it was a surprise, but they're good about having it done anyway. And it's more than a table of contents, it's a record of their grade for that topic, they get a sticker for mastery. If they don't fill out the table, they don't get a sticker, that's enough motivation some times. At the beginning of the year I will explicitly walk them through the process, stating several times that it is a requirement and that I will check. I do this through the first three tests. After that it gets to be pretty automatic. I don't know if there's anything special about that that gets them to do it. 90% of my students do it without issue, I have a couple that will let it wander out of date (usually because they weren't there the day I handed back a test) or some who just don't have a notebook, period.
2) I don't have any good numbers for how many of them use the notebook as a reference. Maybe 50%? I don't know. What I started doing in the second semester was titling the problem sets identically with the topic name I would use on the test. That way when it's time to review and I say "ok, radical equations is on this test" they can match what I say with some assignment I gave on it. Again, it's not the whole room, but it's more than 0. I mainly mentioned that point because when we were reviewing for our state tests, a question about parent functions was on a prep worksheet and some boy flipped way back to the beginning of his notebook to find the matching activity we did. Blew my mind.
Just repeating others at this point but I really appreciated the photo examples of the high school level interactive notebooks and have starred/bookmarked this post in blog reader
I'm not sure how I stumbled across your site, but I really like this idea. I have thought about doing this is the past, but never tried to implement it. My thought was just to use composition books, I notice you give your students the freedom to use spirals. Out of curiosity do you have an approximate break down on how many choose spirals vs composition? Do students make it through the whole year with one book or do they end up with a collection? It is great to see you had success with it, and now I'm determined to try and pull it off. I hate 3-ring binders, maybe partially because I am left-handed and trying to writing in them is always a challenge.
I never really kept track of that, maybe 70/30 split in favor of spirals? I always buy a handful of composition notebooks at the beginning of the year to give away just for fun, so even though I say it doesn't matter, some will get one just to match I guess. Again, I didn't keep close track but a big majority of students kept the same book throughout the year. I hand out a lot of things, but not so many that you'd definitely need a second book. I think maybe 5 kids got a second one because they had filled their first and maybe another 5 started a second one because they lost the first one. In elementary school I was always made to use 3-ring binders and stuff would always fall out because the holes in the paper would rip, or the binder mechanism would break, or the pockets would overflow because I wouldn't punch holes in everything. Never liked them.
I love your pics, and will be borrowing much of what you have for my A2 classes. I am new to blogging and following math tweeps on twitter, and I have heard a lot about interactive notebooks. I noticed you have students do notes and work in your notebooks.
1) Is this classwork? Homework?
2) As I understand, the TOC is for students tracking progress on skills?
So glad I was able to help you! Interactive notebooks are a very hot topic. I'd say my implementation is somewhere on the lower end as I don't script the contents of the book as much as some other people. If you look around you'll find note-taking standards, foldables and things that I don't do. The work in the notebooks is classwork. I usually hand it out with 10 minutes to go in the period. It will be the warm up exercise the next day and checked either that day or later in the week depending on how many assignments I have in mind. It's not explicitly homework, they're free to work on it at home. Most are able to complete it during the allotted class time. Yes, the TOC is their grade tracker. Lets them see where they might need some extra help and it speeds up after school tutorials. Some people use it as an actual TOC, requiring the kids to write page numbers and whatnot. I don't push that level of organization on to them.