Algebra 2 Interactive Notebook

One of the MANY reasons I'm looking forward to Twitter Math Camp this summer is the opportunity to learn about Interactive Notebooks from @mgolding. However, I just cannot wait until then, so I've been talking to a lady at my school that uses them in her science class (she learned about them at AVID last summer), and today I decided to try it out.

The Rationale
The idea behind the INB is to help students organize and process the course content. Typically on the right side pages, students take traditional notes or tape/glue in handouts, quizzes, etc. On the left side, the students interact with the right-hand content by summarizing, journaling, making a graphic organizer, foldables, whatever. I have definitely seen a decline in student organization, so I'm willing to give it a try :)

The Notebook
Most people like to use composition notebooks, but I don't have any of those lying around, but I do have TONS of the 10 cent spirals that I buy every year - (Confession time... I'm a school supply hoarder and junkie. If I'm ever on the TV show hoarders it will be due to either books or school supplies!)

On the inside cover and first page, like any book, is the author info page and the table of contents. This table of contents came from the web, but I think I would want one that also includes the date because not all students will have things on the same page due to differences in writing size. I also learned that I will need to put borders on anything I expect to be cut out because the unevenness really annoys me :) I am worried about the time to cut/tape everything though.... Suggestions?


The next few pages typically have things like the syllabus, grading rubric, etc. I don't know what all will go here, but I do know one thing I want to put in there is an SBG score sheet for students to record their scores. This is just one I played with to see how it would look :)


At our school, we start the year in Alg2 with a quiz over some very basic Algebra 1 skills. This quiz has 5 objectives - order of operations, solving equations, etc. So I put that on the next page and their remediation for that quiz would go on the left. Notice that I taped in the quiz sideways, so it could still be opened and looked at :) I don't know how well tape will hold up over time, but it's worth a shot.


The next few pages are where I really had to stretch a bit (and I already found a math error, but I'm too lazy to correct it, so forgive me). Last summer, the Alg2 teachers got together and redesigned the first weeks of Alg2 in order to do the necessary Algebra 1 review in the context of Algebra 2. While I was in on the planning, my schedule got changed the week before school started, so I was not in on the implementation. That means that all I had to go on while building my practice notebook was some very rough notes from last summer. I know they started with an introduction to parent functions so that they could review table of values, graphing points, intercepts, and the concepts of domain and range. I don't have the parent function sheet they used, so this is one I created today. Again, forgive math errors - I was doing this in a hurry :)


In the pacing guide I had, there were a few more days, but I need more detail from my Alg2 buddies, so I skipped ahead. On the right side, you can see the Objective (which I need to start posting daily) and the handout. On the left, you can see the daily warmup (totally made up on the spot) and the summary of the lesson. This will need to be more fleshed out over the course of the summer, but it gives you the general idea.


Conclusions and Questions
I have to say that one thing I'm really looking forward to here is the use of color. I love pens of different colors (remember that hoarder part?), but I know some kids will resist. :(

I don't know what to do in the notebook (especially on the right hand side) on the days where we do an activity (card sort, etc). What pitfalls and such might I run up against trying to do this? I know that one thing is for certain - while I am a pretty organized person, I'm going to have to be even more organized in order to know what I want on the right/left side each day and that part frankly scares me. :( However, a quick glance on the web shows how popular these are, so there has to be redeeming value, right? :) And seriously... we get to play with scissors, tape, and COLORS! :) Yay!