Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Interactive Notebooks-Completion Problems This year I decided to have my science classes put together interactive science notebooks. They took spiral notebooks and created a table of contents in the front and then numbered each of their pages. Any notes that we took in class were glued onto the left side of their notebook. The right sides of their notebooks I asked them to basically summarize the notes from the left side. They could do this in a variety of ways, draw picture, write a story, create a concept map, etc. I don't care HOW they summarize as long as they ARE summarizing. We started out okay, but now I can't hardly get any of my students to complete their notebooks! I grade them every two weeks and it's rapidly becoming a waste of time to even collect them. I still like the concept but what can I do differently to encourage them to complete this? I take it as a homework assignment in my grade book. Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) Another solution to ensuring that students are more engaged with the output side of the interactive notebook is to provide choices for the students. One way to do so is to assign clock assignments. 12 generic assignments can be given that students can complete to demonstrate their understanding of the notes. This provides the students with choice to show they understand what has been covered for the day, and they will be more willing to complete the output side. The assignment does not become redundant for students, and it's still structured for the teacher.