Our amazing lessons are planned. Our notebooks are set up and ready to go. Now it's time to TEACH!
I am required to use a lesson plan format called GANAG. Having used this format for 5+ years, I will admit that it has made me a more focused, goal-driven teacher (as opposed to a-bunch-of-activities-strung-together teacher), and even though I'm required to use it, I do actually enjoy it.
ANYWAY…
Here's what a typical lesson would look like in my class. This is a math lesson on triangles from my Geometry IN unit. I took screen shots of my actual SMARTBoard lesson for you to see what my kids see.
GOAL
First we read through the goal/objective for the lesson on our table of contents. We look for key words. Sometimes we underline them or highlight them. We talk about if we know what the key words mean. Then my kids give themselves a "Before Learning Score." They rate their knowledge of the goal. I use a 3-point scale:
1 = I know nothing about the goal
2 = I know a few things about the goal
3 = I know many things about the goal.
I know many people use a 4-point scale, with 4=I know many things about the goal AND I could teach it to someone. I use the 3-point scale to maintain consistency with my grading system.
ACCESSING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
My next step is a quick 1-3 minute activity to jump start their brains. I talked about this a bit in the application activities post. It may or may not include writing in the notebook, but if it does, we do this writing/drawing on the Thinking Side of the notebook.
After that, we dig into the new information. I gave tons of examples on the learning activities post of ways I present the new information. We work on the Learning/Information side of the notebook during this step. A lot of this is guided by me. As a second grade teacher, my ultimate goal is to teach my students how to take notes to prepare them for the upper grades. We discuss what we want to write in our notebooks (with a lot of guiding from me to make sure we get the important info), I write it on the SMARTBoard, and they all copy it down. I would say that 90% of the time, all of my students' notebooks all look the same on the Learning/Information side. Keep in mind, though, that since I'm a primary teacher, my kids don't have experience taking their own notes. So we do it together :) If you teach the intermediate/upper grades, you would adjust your involvement according to your students' ability.
The fourth step is when the true "interaction" of Interactive Notebooks happen. It's when the students take what was learned and apply it in a way that makes sense to them and makes the information stick. This post was all about strategies and activities we use to apply the new information.
 |
| For this activity, students were also supposed to draw their own example of each kind of triangle, but those directions are not written on the slides. |
GENERATE GOAL
The last part of my lesson is when we go back to review the goal. Think of it like wrapping up a present and putting a bow on it. We go back to the table of contents, read the goal, write the page number that has the information on it, and students give themselves an After Learning Score. While they are doing this, I am circulating the room and checking to see who thinks they still need more practice with the goal. My students self-score every day, several times a day. At this point in the school year, I don't really have to worry about kids who are generous with their self-score; they tend to be pretty honest if they don't understand. We also have lots of discussions about how if they tell me they understand a concept, but they really don't, then I can't help them because I don't know they need help. Other ways I check in with my kiddos are exit slips, pair/share with your neighbor: 2 things you learned, one question you still have, etc.
In my next post, I'm going to talk about why I don't grade my interactive notebooks. I know that it's a hot topic, but it's something I believe in very strongly. So stay tuned!
Missed a Post?
