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Five Good Reasons to use Science Notebooks
Gilbert, J. & Kotelman, M. (2005). Five good reasons to use science notebooks. Science & Children, 43(3), 28-32.
One of the homework assignments Adam assigned was to read and respond to the article Five Good Reasons to use Science Notebooks (Gilbert & Kotelman, 2005). The students documented their thoughts using pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading strategies that they had been learning about in Physics 111. Students were asked to think about the ways they might use science notebooks for students in their future classrooms.
Assignment
Respond and Post: Look at the reading strategies sheet handed out today. Follow some of the pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading strategies to guide your own learning through the text. Make connections between the text and how you might use science notebooks in your own classroom!
The document containing the reading strategies that the students used to complete this assignment are listed here: 2011fph111readingstrategies.doc
Student Responses
| XXXXXXXX | Pre-Reading | During-Reading | Post-Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student 1 | 1)What are some good reasons for using the science notebooks? 2)What do teachers get back from the notebooks? 3)What is an appropriate/beneficial age to start using science notebooks? | 1)Notebooks are thinking tools, guide teacher instruction, enhance literacy skills, support differentiated learning., and foster teacher collaboration. 2)Teachers can look at each students individual work and give individual feedback about their notebooks. Its nice because teachers can easily help children catch up if they happened to be struggling. 3)I didn't really find a specific age that is appropriate to start, but I think the sooner students start the better. It says K-8. | After reading this article I once again learned that science and literacy can go together. Literacy can go well with any subject which is really nice. You can teach your students to learn pre, post, and during reading and they can use it while reading for any subject. |
| Student 2 | 1. What are the five good reasons for using the science notebooks? 2. Do the notebooks require teacher instruction or is it freely up to the students what goes into it? 3. What age can you start using science notebooks? 4. Are the notebooks mainly filled with worksheets, or student’s own work, etc? | 1. Five Reasons: Notebooks are thinking tools, guide teacher instruction, enhance literacy skills, support differentiated learning, foster teacher collaboration 2. They can be used both ways: the students can write what they want and the teacher can use this information for lesson plans, etc. For instance if the teacher sees that from their notebooks the children are gaining a concept wrong, or need further clarification, the teacher can work their needs into the lesson. 3. Did not elaborate much on this, but the article was talking about using it in K-8. 4. The notebooks can be filled with either the worksheets or personal work, whichever helps the student learn and retain the knowledge best. | I think that science notebooks are very valuable to a child’s learning process. They are extremely handy, as the students can look back at previous work they have done, ideas they have mastered, etc. and be able to build off what they already know. What I liked most about this article was how even young students were using science notebooks in their own ways; anyone can make a science notebook, which is very encouraging. This is definitely something that I want to implement in my classroom, and hopefully my students will find it just as useful. |
| Student 3 | First I thought about what I know about science notebooks and what my experiences with them are. I know science notebooks are a strategy to help kids reflect and remember what they learn about science. In the first grade class I help in the kids are keeping science plant notebooks so I think this is the same idea. Some questions I have from scanning the article are: 1) Is there a certain structure to the notebooks or are kids just encouraged to write or draw anything in any sort of way? 2) How do the notebooks help support differentiated learning? 3) What are some of the benefits of using science notebooks? | I answered my pre-reading questions: 1) The students were encouraged to write observations, draw pictures, make charts, graphs, tables, and anything else that would help them explain what they were learning. They were also encouraged to ask lots of questions in their notebooks. 2) The teacher is constantly giving individual feedback in the notebooks and this had a great affect on slower learners and faster learners. The slow learners were encouraged by notes and the notes helped keep them on track and fast learners were asked challenging questions by the teacher so that they would look closer at their ideas and get more out of their learning. 3) Science notebooks are great for helping kids expand their knowledge of science and to help them document and express their new (and old) ideas about the subject and record any questions and/or predictions they have. The notebooks are also great ways to help kids improve their writing skills: descriptive, narrative, explanatory, even persuasive. It also helps them learn organization and how to organize information and ideas into charts and tables. And I came up with a couple new questions: 1) How often is science notebooks used in these classrooms, daily? It sounds like they are used whenever science is being taught of whenever the kids need to reflect or organize and display science information. 2) How do teacher help one another? They have study groups together where they bring the notebooks and reflect over what they students have recorded, what they need more work on, what the teachers should teach next and things like that. They give each other ideas and support. | Here are some thoughts and main ideas I had when I reflected on the reading when I was finished with the article: -I had no idea that science notebooks were a requirement in some school districts, such as the one in Tucson. *Key points: Notebooks are thinking tools Observation lacks direction without asking questions and wondering. Notebooks guide teacher instruction Notebooks enhance literacy skills Student’s ideas were clearer when they communicated with written and visual text - At first the kids mostly only drew pictures and eventually they started writing in greater detail and drawing more accurate, lifelike pictures. -I thought it was really interesting that the teachers had study groups to go over the notebooks. I think it’s great the teacher could collaborate like this and help encourage and give each other ideas. -These notebooks do sounds like the notebooks my first graders use. I think they are a very good idea and I plan to use something like this in my classroom. I think they are also a cool tool because kids can look back at how their ideas changed over time and they can also look back to see if their predictions were right. I really like the idea too of giving each kid individual feedback, I think this is really important for kids to have and I plan to do the same kind of thing when I am a teacher. |
| Student 4 | I first scanned the title, subheadings, pictures, and captions to formulate what I thought the article was going to be about. I figured out that the article was going to explain why science notebooks should be used in classrooms. With this, I formulated questions. 1.)How do science notebooks benefit children? 2.) How do science notebooks benefit teachers? 3.)Are can these notebooks offer that other instruction cannot? | I wrote down important information about this article as well as answered my pre-reading questions. A.)Notebooks are thinking tools B.)Notebooks guide teacher instruction C.)Notebooks enhance literacy skills D.)Notebooks support differential learning E.)Notebooks foster teacher collaboration 1.)Science notebooks allow children to construct better conceptual understandings of material. It gets them very involved in their own learning processes. Notebooks also allow students to become more comfortable with the communication process by talking, writing, and drawing. 2.)Science notebooks benefit teachers by giving teachers access into what children are learning and thinking. Teachers can read their students journals and get a great understanding of which concepts are concrete and which concepts need more help. 3.)Teachers are able to give individual feedback to students about their science notebooks. If teachers can write/ask questions to individual students that prompt them to go in the right direction, their learning is enhanced. In a lot of classroom instruction, not every student can get one-on-one feedback and help from the teacher. This way, all students can continue learning at a fast pace. | I liked reading this article because it talks about a great tool to use to foster science learning in the classroom as well as literacy and communication skills. I thought it was great that teachers are able to implement journals as not only a way to write down what they know, but also what they want to know, and how they can go about finding answers. For all of these reasons, I think science notebooks are a great idea. I am excited to try them out in my own classroom in the future. |
| Student 5 | It looks like there is a lot of helpful information in there for teachers. There are kind of like sample lesson plans and learning tools throughout the article. From the bullet points, it looks like they are just listing off the positives of using science notebooks. I wonder how they use the science notebooks? I wonder how old the students are? Is this just for one sample class, or is this a school-wide implemented program? | It seems like the notebooks are really productive for students and teachers. The bullet points or heading really are just a list of the pros for science notebooks. They are a K-8 school and I think they are being used throughout the school district. They use the notebooks for pre-assignments before they do an experiement; sort of like a place where they can write down observations beforehand, jot down their thoughts and questions. | It seems like the students and teachers have felt just as much success with the notebooks as I do when I use them. The students can use them as a place to make their questions and ideas concrete, where they can work things out and organize their thoughts. Teachers are able to use them as a teaching guide and a way to monitor how the students are doing and what direction to take the lesson in. Teachers are also seeing improvements in student's overall literacy. Its just another form of practice and another outlet for students. I think its a really great idea to use notebooks, especially in science. Students can guide their own learning and take it in the direction they want. Science can also have concepts that are sometimes difficult to grasp and writing things down as they are observed or learned is a good way to stay on top of their knowledge and keep it organized. They can also come back to it as they continue on with the lesson if they forget about it or need a refresher. They can also use it to do some comparing and contrasting with further knowledge they gain. I know I like to do this and during the article I read a part where they said that this technique helps with differentiating learning. I completely agree. It covers so many different types of learning; anything from auditory (then they write it down), visual, kinesthetic and any combination of those. On a sidenote, I recently went through a lot of my work from when I was in elementary school and middle school and I did a lot of notebooks where I could write down what I had learned and it was really neat to look back on what I was processing and learning. |
| Student 6 | Before reading the article, I scanned all the headings and looked at the pictures and captions. I asked myself what I already knew about science notebooks, and thought about what we had discussed in classed. I wondered what new information the article would present, and whether it would discuss what we had talked about. | The thing I like most about science notebooks is that they can be used by any age. Even young students that cannot write very well can rely on pictures to convey their messages. I also liked how the article pointed out that ELL students could write in their primary language, if they were still struggling with writing in English. They can also work with students that speak both languages to learn key words and sentences and how to use them in their science notebooks. | In class, the observation was made that it is nice to be forced to write down our thoughts and what we learned each day, and that it helps organize our thoughts and ideas. I think the article touched on this when it said it was important to remember that the science notebooks are for the students, to record and make sense of their learning. I think this is an important aspect of the notebooks, it helps students learn and may cause them to write more, when they know it is for themselves and not necessarily graded. They may be more likely to make leaps and predictions they may not make to the class as a whole. |
| Student 7 | I scanned this article before I started reading and was very curious about the information it was going to give out. | As I read I was highly impressed. I realize that I definitely want to use scientific notebooks in my class. For one, I was impressed with all the different types of writing it can help the students get comfortable with and improve on. I also liked how it stretches the students with their writing and expressing what they think no matter where there learning level is. I think this is a great way to increase children’s literacy skills and to know what topics to focus on by reading their journals. I also liked how the teachers got together at least once every other week to discuss new ideas and what the children are learning and how it is going individually in each classroom. I think this is a great way to get students excited about learning along with giving them confidence. They are also able to look back at any time and see what they had learned/observed and write more information down and see their learning process. | I will definitely use these science notebooks in my class. I think it will really help with the children’s literacy and interest for learning. I also think that it could help unite the class as the children share their observations and work together with what they think but are still able to write down all their own thoughts in their notebook. I also think having a good insight on what they want to know more about is a good way to build new subject matter to teach my class. |
| Student 8 | Before reading, I glanced at the overview of this article, through doing this I was able to see headings, subcategories and pictures that caught my eye and allowed me to develop the following questions that I would like to ask. 1. What are the five main reasons to use science notebooks within a classroom environment? 2. How does using notebooks enhance a child’s learning? 3. How is expository writing used while incorporating science notebooks? 4. How do teachers use science notebooks to their advantage? | While Reading the article I was able to answer the questions that I asked at the beginning of pre-reading, here is what I found. 1. The five reasons in which science notebooks are used is as follows: 1. Notebooks are thinking tools: The notebooks were used for students to conduct their own conceptual understanding. The notebooks enhanced aspects of investigation and the students were able to feel comfortable asking their own questions while exploring. 2. Notebooks guide teacher instruction: The notebooks gave teachers access to their students thinking and that allowed the teachers to gain further knowledge about what their students were interested in so they knew what to teach next. 3. Notebooks enhance literacy skills: By having the students use the notebooks, they could practice their writing and receive feedback from their teachers, which resulted in a more comfortable setting for the students when it came to other writing assignments. 4. Notebooks support differentiated learning: Students of different ability levels were all able to use science notebooks and learn from the process with the help of teachers input. 5. Notebooks foster teacher collaboration: Teachers were brought together to share their ideas about science notebooks and assure one another that they were going to work. 2. Science notebooks enhance children’s learning because they are able to explore a topic on their own personal level, which then increases their understanding because they were able to do it on their own terms. Notebooks also enhance their writing abilities because they are able to use many different styles of writing when reflecting in their notebooks. Overall, science notebooks produce students creativity because they are in control of their learning and thus, a larger amount of knowledge is gained because they wanted to learn about the topic in their own means rather than having someone tell them what they can and cannot write. 3. Expository writing is used while working with science notebooks because students are able to use descriptive, procedural, narrative, explanatory and persuasive writing to explain what they are thinking while using their science notebooks. 4. Teachers are able to use science notebooks to their advantage because they are able to reflect on their students learning and then create lesson plans based on the information their students have given them through self-exploration by asking their own questions. If enough student’s were to ask a question on their own, the teacher would then know that this question should be addressed to the whole class. | I believe that science notebooks are a great collaboration within the classroom for uses of both science and literacy. Students are able to explore topics on their own, while teachers are able to gain the benefits by learning from what the student’s interests are. By having a learning source that students of different levels can use together, there is no division within the classroom and each student’s personal abilities. Students are able to explore, investigate, collaborate, learn and conclude on their own terms and that makes a more welcoming environment for students across the board in their different levels of skill. As a future teacher, I look forward to using notebooks in my own classroom not just as a science tool because I think it is important for literacy to be developed throughout every aspect of learning that takes place within a classroom, while I think the most beneficial would be science I think that the ideas and purposes held behind these books are important in any aspect of learning, which can include topics such as math, social studies and health. I think notebooks are a very important aspect of learning and I am excited to see if they work for my classroom and me in the future. |
Adam Devitt designed this assignment as part of his Master's project. See:
Devitt, A. (2010). Exploring reading strategies: Week 6. In Implementing science notebooks and reading strategies in a physics course for prospective elementary and middle school teachers. (Master's Project). Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University. Retrieved from http://contentbuilder.merlot.org/toolkit/html/stitch.php?s=68418716982397&id=143194354272629
