Interactive Notebooks for Engaging 21st Century Learning

What is an Interactive Notebook?

In simplest terms - an Interactive Notebook is a pop-up book!

We all loved pop-up books. If the truth be told, I would love to see some of the literature we require of our students - and read ourselves - to contain pop-ups. Can you imagine much more engaging say, The Scarlet Letter would be if a student turned a page and up pops Hester Prynne, baby in arms, leaving a prison -- and the crowd of people pop-up, but when you pull the paper toggle marker - Hester turns into a goat - overtly alerting students that she is the scapegoat for all of their sins. Not only would they want to read more - they'd remember more. Why do we stop adding pictures, and interactive ones at that, because students get older. 

Admit it - wouldn't you love to see David McCullough's 1776 "popped-up? Or, how about Steven King's - well anything by Steven King - popped up! Our minds think in pictures - the first letters were pictures - so to speak - and emoticons seems to be sending us back to the hieroglyphics found in ancient tombs - see Fortune Magazines: A Return to Hieroglyphics. So why not pop-ups for older students and adults and if publishers are not going to provide them for our students - you can help them make their own by using Interactive Notebooks.

Interactive Notebooks are "popping" up everywhere (pun intended) and for good reason - they help embed critical concepts and important information into the minds of students. Imagine ears popping up in IV.vi.21 or when Claudius says the whole ear of Denmark is "Rankly abused..." (I.v.36-38) - bam! up comes another ear.


So, what is an interactive notebook - a wonderful teaching tool by way of a self-made pop-up notebooks - you provide the templates, pictures, foldables, cutables - or have your students and learning becomes tactile, interactive, social and engaging. I say social - because I let my students talk - as long as most of the topic is on the subject. I flat out tell them - okay so if you're going to talk about the game on Friday - you better do in within the confines of the interactive notebook you are creating - this is a great way to insert formative assessment - you'd be surprised how well you can tell which students are grasping a concept when it is relayed back and forth in terms of a football game, dance or even the latest Instagram or Snapchat trends. Can Formative Assessment be fun - yep.

The Interactive Notebook page samples in this page come from my Huckleberry Finn Novel Study and illustrate some of the interactive pages you can create for your students

Bonus: Interactive Notebook Pages are naturally differentiated - as the output students provide demonstrates their individual levels of understanding, they help students synthesize their work, and they help students expand their knowledge.

High School Novel Units with Formative Assessments Included:

• Go Set a Watchman Novel Unit
• To Kill a Mockingbird Novel Unit
• Frankenstein Novel Unit

Interactive Notebooks make teaching fun and learning engaging. If you need more tips and tricks or would like a specific lesson, book or novel turned into interactive notebook pages - please email: elizabethpinotti@gmail.com - turn around is about a week, but I have many already available. I also have a collection of 80 Common Core State Standards Interactive Notebook templates - that are generic and can be used with any story or novel; however, the more tailored to the book the more engaging!  Interactive Notebook Pages and Foldables.

Have a great day!

Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

What is DOK in my Classroom?

Depth of Knowledge

In 1997, Norman Webb developed what we know as DOK, or Depth of Knowledge. In 2002, Webb wrote a paper, "Depth of Knowledge for Four Content Areas" outlining how the DOK relate to each content area (Norman L. Webb, University of Wisconsin). By now, with educational emphasis on college and career readiness and the Common Core State Standards, by whatever name they happen to be called in your state - or even country; because, let's face it, the Common Core State Standards are nothing more than a backwards map of what students need to know to be - well - college and career ready.

Below is a comparison between Bloom's New Taxonomy and Webb's DOKs.

What's the Same?

Webb's Recall and Reproduction correlate to Bloom's first and second levels - Remembering and Understanding - both requiring the ability of students to recall a fact, information or procedure. Specific verbs would include: arrange, calculate, draw, identify, list, label, illustrate, quote, recognize, recall, recite, state, use, tell who- what- when- where- and why.

Webb's Skill and Concept has students engaging in mental processes beyond using information or conceptual knowledge. Practical application verbs include: apply, categorize, determine cause and effect, classify, collect and display, compare, distinguish, graph, identify patterns, infer, interpret, observe, organize, predict, relate, solve, summarize and use context clues.

Webb's Strategic Thinking requires reasoning, developing plans and sequence of greater complexity of previous levels. Practical application verbs include: appraise, cite evidence, critique, develop a logical argument, differentiate, formulate, hypothesize, investigate and revise.

The top of Webb's pyramid correlates to Bloom's two highest levels and requires complex reasoning, planning and developing. Practical application verbs include: compose, connect, create, critique, defend, design, evaluate, propose, prove, support and synthesize. 

Reference: Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge.

From One Grade to the Next

That said, Webb's Depth of Knowledge Wheel is not Bloom's Taxonomy in a circle. It is much more useful than that - it is a way of developing lessons and activities that scaffold the thinking and learning to help students develop higher cognitive levels of thinking.  Look at one strand of the Common Core State Standards as it expands from Kindergarten to grade 12.

The information from the chart below is taken from the California Department of Education's website regarding the Common Core State Standards and is indicative of the scaffolding between grades that leads to the higher order thinking necessary for college and career readiness:

Within One Project

Most of us don't teach three different grade levels, two is not unusual; however, three - is extreme, so how do you use DOKs within one assignment? Let's say you are doing a unit on pandas and you read several non-fiction books and watch a few video clips - first you may have your students recall the different types of pandas as well as to recall where pandas live in captivity and in the wild.

Now that the foundation is set, and you have started your students on the journey towards higher level thinking, you can move from having them recall, or remember, information to the next level by asking them to compare the different types of pandas and/or distinguish between the environments of pandas living in captivity vs. pandas living in the wild.

Moving to the third level of strategic thinking is where students begin to engage in a topic and make it their own; it is also where the baseline knowledge begins to transition into higher cognitive thinking. Here you could ask students to critique each habitat and then site the differences.

Now, for the hard part - extended thinking. Extended thinking moves us beyond lecturing and expecting certain answers to something they must prove is right or wrong. Here you could ask students to use their critiques of each habitat to formulate an hypothesis as to whether living in the wild or living in captivity is best for pandas - of course - being sure to site evidence.

Teaching with the DOKs are Engaging for Teachers Too

Teaching with the DOKs allow us to be creative. Sure, we have the standards we have to teach, but deciding how to scale up to each students' maximum level of cognitive thinking allows us to be creative and use our own set of extended thinking skills. 

Added bonus - DOKs make it easy to differentiate within the classroom while teaching the same subject.

DOK Question Stems to help you build your lessons.

Speaking of Pandas: The Great Panda Rescue - Interactive Fiction/Non-Fiction STEM Reader - Chapter by Chapter.

More information about DOKs and Fun Brain Facts.

Please follow my Teachers Notebook Shop.

Also, check out my story blog "Story Time by Elizabeth" - free stories, ebooks, presentable books and lessons.

You can find great resources on my Instructional Materials by Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti Blog. Please take a look.

Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Active Participation and Student Engagement Techniques Plus Freebie!

Engaged Students

Engaged students are actively participating in relevant classroom lessons and activities. An expert teacher knows that most of their students should be engaged - most of the time. The alternative - disengagement - has extreme consequences on student learning.

Think about your average question and answer session - a teacher asks a question and then cherry-picks for the answer - only engaging one or two students at most. For students: this is a ticket to let their minds wander - either actively or passively disengaged. 

Don't Be a Plucker

This plucking answers from a group of students does not require students to actively participate and does not allow teachers to know who is learning, who has mastered a topic and who needs more help. An engaged classroom is one where every class session is used as a chance for formative assessment. Where most of the students are participating most of the time.

So, how does one demand active participation and cognitive engagement? -- by eliciting feedback and requiring higher order thinking. It is imperative for us all to plan our pedagogy with the goal of including at least three or four opportunities for students to demonstrate understanding and to actively participate in each lesson. By doing this, we will be able to better analyze, synthesize and evaluation what our students know and how we need to proceed - each step of the way.

Yes, that sounds good, but how can you make this easy? Start with the end in mind - give students - whether in kindergarten or high school - the tools they need to engage.

Student Engagement Techniques and Templates

1. Individual white boards and white board markers - if you don't have white boards - laminate a piece of card stock.

2. Have on hand: glue, markers, crayons, construction paper, scissors, paperclips, clay and highlighters. It is helpful to have one resource box for every four or five people - shoe boxes work great, as do dollar store plastic containers. Make sure they are easily accessible.

3. Use simple strategies and Ready-Made Templates. For example:

• When you pose a question ask students to think about the question, turn to their neighbor, partner, etc., and discuss an answer, then tell them they will have one, three, five minutes to
  
  come up with an answer - also tell them to make sure one person is prepared to report out their answer - this is a take on the basic think-pair-share.
• Quick Writes: A quick write can be done at any time - plan ahead by using prepared prompts or think on your feet as questions come up. Say, take the next two, five minutes to write down your thoughts on "the reasons John Adams and Thomas Jefferson's friendship suffered and what, if any, effect did that have on the government?" The process of journaling provides valuable information to form further instruction.
• Have interactive notebook templates on-hand - Interactive Notebook Pages for RL and RI - yes that means literation and information, so they are perfect for any subject.
• Quick Draws: Use a word back or a passage for your quick draw. Quick draws can be used for any subject and any topic - K through college. Pick a big idea from your lesson. Pose a question asking students the meaning of the concept and tell them to create a visual representation. Have students explain their drawings to a partner. 

• Use a pocket fillable. Print out the pocket Interactive Notebook template, pose the question and tell students to work alone or in pairs to come up with - the best four answers to... - write three themes to Frankenstein on the front of a key, write how each theme is reflected in part 1 - put your keys into pocket.

By writing, discussing and drawing classroom concepts and topics students are better able to analyze various sides of a concept, as well as to visualize, explain and synthesize - thus realizing both the goal of active engagement and student access to higher order learning.  

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Thanks,
Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti
#ChapinPinotti