Sunday, March 26, 2017
http://dailyasianage.com/news/53290/promote-interactive-notebook-for-students
Promote interactive notebook for students M S Siddiqui
Bangladesh Book Publishers and Sellers Association are in movement to press the government to accept their demand for legalizing the publication of note book. According to them, the notebook contains questions and answer for memorizing for exams as per syllabus of the Secondary and higher Secondary School Board. Student achievement is a major focus of schools. The students will get sample question and answer and also have question bank. Students will memorize the answer of probable question in order to gain knowledge and certificate. Association is demanding remove the clauses imposing restriction on notebook of the proposed Education Act rather legalize notebook in propose education law. What is the purpose of attending school and examination? USA authority found in a study on the Third International Mathematics and Science among the students 1990s, that the students were performing poorly compared to their counter parts in other countries. The authority observed that
the schools can better prepare students for future with following steps: First, starting earlier in the student's developmental stage; Second, monitoring the gap between minority and majority social classes; Third, providing opportunity to challenge students, to push them further; Fourth, using computers to support instructional goals rather than just to be using them; Fifth, Providing inquiry lessons that bridge relevant content; and sixth, involving the community. They have recommended using interactive notebook in order to improve the learning of students. Using interactive notebooks in the classroom targets all of the aforementioned needs and helps develop the globally competitive student. Interactive notebooks a spiral notebook that is used to organize information. The right side is used for teacher information (notes, lectures, discussions, handouts, etc.) The left side is used for student information (drawings, cartoons, personalized wording of vocabulary, etc.). Notebooks address these needs by connecting students' thinking and experiences with science concepts, engaging students in collaborative inquiry as a way of learning science content, providing opportunities for all students, creating a concrete record of reflection, assessment, and connections that can be viewed and discussed developing academic language and providing students with an opportunity to think critically and make informed decisions. The interactive notebook becomes real evidence of student learning and thinking, a shaping tool for future productive citizens in the science world. This 'notebooking' promotes communication between the stakeholders-students, teachers, and parents. The interactive notebook is a way of capturing these common experiences on paper, in a place where it won't get lost, so that students can refer back to the common experiences whenever they need them as a way of driving discourse. This provides students with an opportunity to come to consensus and build on the knowledge that was collaboratively gained. According to Gardner (1993) there are eight different types of intelligences; linguistic, logicalmathematical, musical, spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, naturalistic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. Though students tend to be strong in some intelligence areas and weak in others, it is important for them to be exposed to all types of intelligences. The intelligences defined by Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University, as the ability to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in at least one culture (Gardner, 2006). IQ tests, he points out, cannot measure the value of a product or one's ability to produce a product. Within this context Gardner identified eight intelligences namely linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and naturalist. Teachers can use the interactive notebook to plan lessons to reach a broad spectrum of intelligences. There is research on the brain that indicates the importance of note taking and teaching students according to their learning styles. The brain is divided into different sections each with a separate function. The cerebral part of the brain is divided in the right and left hemisphere. "The hemispheres are divided into the occipital lobe that processes visual information, the temporal lobe processing auditory information and some memory and the parietal lobe processing feeling and touch. The frontal lobe specializes in decision-making planning and problem solving" (Stickel, 2005). The teachers plan, they should think about creating lessons that involve all of the lobes in the brain. Interactive notebooks are potentially an effective means to organize information to accomplish this. According to Kiewra (1996) "the interactive notebook could be analogous to an informationprocessing model. This model involves the processes of selective attention, encoding (coding information into usable form), placement of information into short-term memory, storages in longterm memory, and retrieval from memory". An interactive notebook is a tool students use to make connections prior to new learning, to revise their thinking, and to deepen their understandings of the world around them. It is the culmination of a student's work throughout the year that shows both the content learned (input) and the reflective knowledge (output) gained.
The interactive notebook can be an important tool to help students remember and review information needed for assessments. The right side of the notebook can be used for notes provided by the teacher; this is the side that students use to study for assessment. Teachers that provide their students with notes were shown to have better achievement than those whose students personally recorded them (Kiewra, 1985b). If the students are given information to put on the notebook's right side, they can use the left side of the notebook to put the information into their own words, drawings, etc. This helps the "brain by making connections between what is experienced (learned) and what that experience (information) means to the learner" (Caine,2005). Interactive notebooks can help students' process information, study and review for assessments and personalize the content knowledge being presented. The same notebooks can help teachers plan lessons that reach a range of students' abilities and learning styles. Overall, an interactive notebook is an organizational tool for teachers and students. The Learning Styles also be different. "This approach to learning emphasizes the fact that individuals perceive and process information in very different ways. The learning styles theory implies that how much individuals learn has more to do with whether the educational experience is geared toward their particular style of learning" (understanding). The note taking by students also has a method. The process of recording information presented by a teacher for thepurpose of improving recall or understanding by the student. Notes typically include a combination of direct quotes of what a teacher says, diagrams, and additions by the student to add emphasis or to indicate areas where outside study may be required (Rowan) An interactive notebook is used as an organizational tool for classroom instruction. Often interactive notebooks are spiral bound or large composition books. The notebooks have a hard or plastic cover to make them more durable. Generally, each student has a spiral notebook for his/her interactive notebook that he/she uses for recording information for the class; each pair of pages is designated for different purposes. An interactive notebook also refers to the interaction of student, teacher and parent in the student's education and serves as a portfolio of student work for the entire year (Trucillo, 2006).It is not only a place for students to do their work and reflect on their class activities, but it is also for the teacher to see the development of student learning, and for the parent to also see how well the child is doing and what they are learning. In this way, all stakeholders have the opportunity to reflect on student work. The interactive notebook also enhances communication between the student and the parent or the teacher and the parent. Parents can simply pick up the interactive notebook and start asking questions about the student's entries. The interactive notebook provides parents with evidence of a student's conceptual understanding and personal reflections. A notebook rubric, which is permanently affixed in the front of the notebook, can be used by parents, teachers, and students to discuss expectations and the extent to which the student is meeting them. The notebook persuaded by the publishers and book sellers will limit the students to memorize a certain number of answers to some questions. There is no impact test on our students how they are learning but we can assess the quality while they appear in exam for employment. The system does not improve the intelligences and also not make them creative. We should promote interactive notebook for opening up the opportunity of learning and increase the creativity but not the notebook with fixed answers to the fixed questions.
The writer is a legal economist