Michael Emerson

Freshman Connor Barnhill takes notes in his interactive notebook in conceptual physics. The students are required to have the spiral notebook for this class for note-taking, labs and assignments.

Some classes have begun to use a new form of note-taking and homework assignments in to help students understand concepts.

Two years ago, teachers from the science department went to an AVID conference and saw how the conference used interactive notebooks and decided they wanted to implement it into their classes.

Some teachers like the notebooks better than taking normal notes in class because it allows for sequencing, and it allows for all of the notes, activities and labs to be arranged in the same area.

“I love them, I will never go back. They are much easier to grade, they are better for accountability on the part of the student and the parents can see what’s going on much easier,” said AP Biology teacher Meghan Whitney.

Student reviews on the interactive notebook are mixed.

“Students either love them or hate them, generally the students that hate them were the ones that were already super organized to begin with and they liked doing the different sections,” Whitney said.

“It’s good for organizing information,” said freshman Brenna Lyon.

The interactive notebooks have been also used for classwork in addition to taking notes with in the science department by doing left assignments.

A left assignment is an assignment that is used to make connections between the notes and the concepts by doing an assignment such as vocabulary cards, haikus, limericks or question cards based on the concepts that were learned in that set of notes.

“Not everybody likes doing the left assignments where you have to use your brain and use colors because it does require you to think in connections,” Whitney said.

Conceptual physics teacher Dan Hounslow has seen an increase in his students’ grades with most improving between three and five percent.

“I think [the notebooks are] fantastic. They increase organization, it’s a one-stop-shop for everything they need, it’s a superior review medium when reviewing for semester tests, and I recommend it to everyone,” Hounslow said.

Oklahoma History and World Geography teacher Justin Hixon has also begun to use interactive notebooks.

“We’re just doing notes in there. The biggest problem for freshmen is organization. They have a tendency to take notes and to lose them, so this way all the notes they take all year will be in one spiral,” Hixon said.

“I think it’s pretty cool,” said freshman Max Gonzales. “I think it is a definite improvement in education.”

Stacey Biddy has also started using the interactive notebooks in her Spanish I and III classes.

“We basically put everything that we do in, and we glue it and tape it into the notebook, it doesn’t matter which side it lands on as long as they’re keeping up with their table of contents” Biddy said.

She started using them last year at the end of the first semester with her Spanish I class and has been making changes to it since.

“My challenge is that I want them to use color, I like using color when we take notes because you can match up the English with the Spanish word with the same color” Biddy said.