Interactive Notebooks - The Perfect Combination of Lecture and Handout Notes!

Lecture notes = stand and deliver in many minds.  Guided (fill-in-the-blank) notes = spoon feeding in other minds.  Neither one is better or worse than the other.  Instead they are structured to meet your students at the place that they are at.  The reality is, though, that in a class of 28 - 35 no one is at the same place.  So how do you meet them where they are at while retaining the flow of the class?  This is a struggle that I have had for the better part of 20 years through a 7 - period day, 6 - period day, trimesters, semesters, block and probably more that I cannot remember!  In addition, we have tried to be more "green" and "paperless" in my district as well which further adds to the struggle when you are trying to not make multi-page handouts that will just be (hopefully) recycled at the end of the semester.  So this year, I am trying  going to pilot something different in one of my classes - Interactive Notebooks - that I think will be the "perfect" marriage between the two methods!  I wanted to share with you why and how I'm going to go about it!

Cut and Paste

1)  Interactive Notebooks help students to stay organized helps them to reference back to old material.  One of my biggest frustrations is when students are trying to find something in a folder that is jam-packed with old assignments, notes, handouts and 1,000 other pieces of paper.  While it is fantastic that they are keeping all of these things, they serve no purpose if they can't find anything in them!  By using an interactive notebook students have all of their notes, IN ORDER, and can actually find them when they need them.  Some teachers also have students number the pages and keep a table of contents (which makes so much sense) so that they know exactly where the material is.  This is a fantastic thing, especially at the secondary level when material spirals and keeps building upon each other.  Although I did not use INB this year, I had a couple of my honor's students

FREE!!!

bring out their INB from the previous year (yes they kept them!) to look up previous ideas!

2)  Interactive Notebooks help to hold students accountable for and engage them in their own learning.  With many of guided notes, I find that a few of my students literally only fill-in-the blanks and don't write anything else down.  While this is by far a slim percentage of my students, as a teacher I want to reach them all.  I asked my students why this was and the common response was
that they don't know how to take notes and that they write slow (especially if the blanks are words that they are not familiar with).   INBs allow teachers to go more in-depth and help students to focus in on small pieces of information which leads to students writing more down.  Students also seem to feel more ownership because they can annotate easier and add things around the page.  

Angles of Elevation and Depression

3)  Interactive Notebooks should save paper, resources and time.  Since the interactive notebook pages are smaller and many less pages than traditional notes it should save on both paper and copy machine resources.  Most INB pages can be printed two to a page or are tabs that you can paste into the regular notebook and write under, both of which will save on paper.  Fewer copies means less time at the copy machine which means more time for everything else!  Additionally, since INB pages tend to be shorter, it will be easier to go over them more in-depth with absent students instead of having to wait for them to copy down multiple pages of notes from other students first.  Instead you can create an Interactive Notebook of your own that can act as a key.  This way  absent students can just borrow yours to fill in theirs and you can copy just one or two pages of your notebook if you need to send something home instead of multiple pages.

Similar Triangles Cut and Paste

4)  Interactive Notebooks meet students where they are at.  Interactive notebooks allow students to pick their pace.  If they need more examples, they can write them on the notebook page around the INB paste in.  Or if they want to explain how different ideas tie together, they can write the page number of the related page on the INB page and have quick reference.  Additionally, for those students who have accommodations, INB pages are easily differentiated to meet their needs.  I have even found that when surveyed, my honor's level kids liked the idea.  They stated that sometimes it is nice to have the diagrams done so that they can go further and explore the ideas more in-depth instead of getting bogged down with drawing everything.

Congruent Triangles Cut and Paste

I am going to try out Interactive Notebooks in one or two of my classes for the first couple weeks of school and do traditional guided notes in my other.  After a couple of weeks, I will let my students chose which one they like better.  I suspect it is going to the Interactive Notebooks.  I'll keep you posted!   Click here to get my Interactive Notebook pages on Angles Formed by Parallel Lines for free!   I would love to hear how you use Interactive Notebooks in your classes!  Please share below!  

"Noise" In A Classroom - It's Not Always A Bad Thing!

When I first starting teaching (oh so many years ago!), I wanted a quiet classroom.  Almost to the level of hearing a pin drop.  Why?  Simple.  A quiet classroom, in my mind, was a sign of great classroom management.  It meant that my students were engaged, working and I was in control of the room.  I dreaded the question "can we work together" because working together leads to noise, noise leads to chaos and chaos lead to bad classroom management.  While I was right about chaos equaling bad management, I have learned that I was very wrong about the rest.  Noise and chaos are not the same thing.

A few years ago, as I got more comfortable as a teacher, as a part of the staff and with my subject matter I started relaxing a little and exploring other classroom structures.  I found that when a teacher structures it correctly and with strong expectations in place from the beginning, student collaboration can be one of the most powerful tools a teacher can use!  The key, I have found, is to start small at the beginning of a year or a term, before jumping into stations or collaborations that require a great deal of movement around the classroom.  I would describe the progression like this:

Step one:  Establish clear communication with your students about what your expectations are when they are talking to each other, participating in a classroom discussion or engaging in a group activity.  The clearer you are about what you expect, the easier it is to control the classroom and the students without requiring silence.  

Step two:  Start with small discussion pieces that are short and structured.  I will ask students to turn to their neighbor and complete an example problem together and then pick a random pair to come to the board to do it for the class.  This serves several purposes:

      ** It sets a time limit and destination (solving the problem), 
      ** It gives them clear direction for their talking
      ** It allows me to rotate and hear what they are talking about
      ** It gives me insight into whether they understand what we are doing (and I can correct it with questioning immediately)
      ** It involves all students since they don't know who will be called to go to the front board.

Partner Worksheet

Fold It Up

A great resource that I have found that helps to transition from this step to the next is made by Teaching High School Math called "Algebra Solving Equations Partner Worksheets".  In this activity students are paired up.  Each student works their problems individually, then they compare answers (which are the same even though they did different equations!) and talk through them if their answers don't match!  

I also really like a resource that I found by Live Love Math called "Fold It Up - Multistep Equations Practice"  It has students create a foldable and solve problems at the same time!  This is great for getting students talking and to break out of the mold of stand and deliver for note-taking.  

Step three:  Do an activity that requires small movement and group collaboration.  Task cards or investigation activities are fantastic for this!  I like using task cards because they can be used so many ways.  You can have the students pass the task cards from pair to pair or between small groups.  Additionally, you can set-up the task cards at stations and have groups of students rotate from station to station.  I also like investigation activities at this point because they require interaction, collaboration and hands-on learning but don't have to require students to be up and moving if your students aren't ready.

Congruent Triangles

Left, Right, Answer

I feature a few investigation activities in my TpT Store including Cut and Paste Activities.  One of my favorites is on Proving Triangles Congruent.  In it, students work in small groups to identify the method or methods being used to prove the triangles congruent and then cut them out and paste them under headings.  The discussion and collaboration that comes out of this is amazing.  I have included it in a money saving bundle that includes proof practice as well.

Task cards are fantastic!  I cannot say enough how much I love them!  They break concepts down into small tasks, help students to focus in on specific topics and encourage great collaboration.  One of my favorite ways to take task cards to the next level is made by 4mulafun called "Left, Right, Answer".  It turns using task cards into a game and more!  (You can check out a blog post about how to use them here.)

Step four:  This is usually the final step.  At this point your students are used to talking to each other and know what your expectations are when they do so.  They are (usually)  pretty good at keeping the noise level at a reasonable level and staying focused.  At this point you can really start having fun.  You can do activities that require large movement such as relay races, gallery walks where instead of tasks being at centers, they are posted on the walls and students are in almost constant movement. Getting to this point really is my favorite place.  I LOVE to see my students up, moving, interacting, collaborating and just generally getting to experience how much fun math can be.

Relay Race

I have seen so many products on TeachersPayTeachers that work here so well.   All Things Algebra has a fantastic relay race on Solving Systems of Equations.  This activity has students checking each others work and racing to get it done. I love it because the students have to not only be able to complete their part but also have to be able to look over the work of others to make sure it is correct!   Prizes could definitely be involved.  

Miss Math Dork has relay races where students do problems and draw a part of a figure.  One of my favorites covers the topic of Circumference and Area of Circles around a circus theme!  Which even team gets the circus scene drawn first, wins!  And as we all know, middle and high school students love competition and prizes! :)  She also has templates so that you can make your own!  

No matter what pace you take it at, collaboration and communication between not only teacher and student, but student to student as well is of critical importance.  I look back at those first few years and wonder why I thought I had to have a silent class to have control of it!  What do you do to encourage collaboration and communication?  What are some of your favorite activities?

Get Out The Scissors and Glue - It's Cut and Paste Time!

There are so many skills that we strive to master as children from writing, coloring and of course using scissors. As we move through school cut and paste activities are highlighted and incorporated often because they achieve so many goals and can be used so many ways. Some of these uses can be to match two related things (i.e. the number one with the word one) or to combine various parts of things to make a whole (i.e. the parts of a snowman or a turkey). Doing such things really help students to "see" the connections.

As we move up through the school years, however, this method of teaching and enrichment really starts to fall by the wayside. We get so busy trying to prepare students for the next grade, the next test or for college that we forget that we can use other techniques besides just "stand and deliver", homework, tests and quizzes. Additionally, at the secondary level these methods are not usually highlighted, taught or to be honest, encouraged. As my years as a teacher have gone on and my students have changed so much, however, I have started to seek out new methods to make connections and help students to see how the math topics we discuss interact with each other.

Congruent Triangles

The first time I did a cut-and-paste activity I was sure that it was doomed to failure. I mean, these are high school students after all, and cutting and pasting is
an elementary task. But everything else I had tried to get my students to see the methods of proving triangles congruent were not working so I needed to try something else. I laid in bed that night brainstorming (that is, after all, where teachers do their best thinking!) and racking my brain about what I could do. I came up with a task where my students were given a set of triangles that were marked with one (or more) method(s) of proving triangles congruent and they had to sort them. I decided to go beyond sorting on a piece of paper, however, and made them actually cut them out and paste them into their categories. The students LOVED it and more FINALLY got the methods and what they look like! I was floored that something so "elementary" worked so well! 

Algebraic Proofs

Similar Triangles

I went on the create similar activities on proving triangles similar that not only had students cutting, pasting and identifying the similarity methods but also had them practicing the angle sum theorem and setting-up and solving proportions.  As we started a unit on logic and proof I devised a way to make algebraic proofs a little more interesting and again help to engage them As need arises, I'll create them on other topics as well - which is currently segment and angle addition proofs!

Domain and Range

It was with little surprise to myself then, that when my Algebra students started struggling with domain and range that I turned to my favorite website to find some resources to help them and I found the best cut-and-paste activity on domain and range. It gives students graphs, mappings and tables and asks them cut out the domain-and-range cards and paste them on to the corresponding graph/table/mapping cards!  The activity came as a part of bundle made by ScaffoldedMathandScience. It was amazing how many students not only finally "got it" but the great conversations and collaboration that occurred.


I have since picked up cut-and-paste activities by the fantastic Lindsay Perro including some on Writing Equations and Point-Slope/Slope-Intercept forms. I have also picked some up by the amazing activities from All Things Algebra on Linear Inequalities and 4 The Love Of Math on Order of Operations.  I shopped at MissMathDork  for help on Translating and Matching One - Step Equations and Factoring when a > 1.

 I love cut-and-paste activities and have many more on my wish list for future visits. I encourage you to reconsider using some traditionally elementary techniques in your secondary math classroom. You might just be surprised at the results! What are your favorite "elementary techniques" that you adapted to the secondary level?