It’s always fun to hear from teachers and former teachers. When they describe the wonderful and effective projects they do with real students in their own classrooms, it’s hard to say: Yeah, but that won’t work in my school.
In their session “Evolution of the K–12 Science Notebook,” three educators from the New York City public schools (Sandra Jenoure, Greg Borman, and Sara Desplaines) described how they work with their elementary and middle school students in creating and, more importantly, using science notebooks. These notebooks are living documents in which students keep records of their lab investigations, vocabulary, class notes, sketches, summaries, and homework. They passed around some real notebooks from real students. Some were more complete and organized than others, but it was clear that there was a process taking place.
When asked why the notebooks were used with elementary and middle school students, Greg said “high schools are tough nuts to crack.” But in his teacher ed classes at CCNY, he requires the teachers to keep such a notebook, to model this process. NSTA has published a book Using Science Notebooks in the Elementary Classroom. I had seen it in the catalog and read a sample chapter online, but now I think I’m going to stop at the NSTA bookstore at the conference tomorrow to get my own copy.
I talked for a while with Greg after the presentation. He and I are of an age when we remember the era of student “portfolios.” We agreed that the word portfolio conjures up images of art projects and the word journal sounds like a diary with personal feelings and reflections. But Notebook—there’s a word that sounds like science. Even Leonardo da Vinci had a notebook!