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I recently read about and began to understand the importance of the use of science notebooks in the classroom. Lori Fulton states in this article that 'it is important for the students to see the notebooks as a valuable tool for themselves and not just something they did because the teacher said so.' Before reading about science notebooks, that is exactly what I thought. I thought that they were only used to keep track of classroom notes. I don't think I was ever really aware of the other benefits that science notebooks have, such as futher developing science content knowledge and literacy skills. In my experience as a student using science notebooks, the majority of my teachers focused on the mechanical use of science notebooks. Thus meaning that they focused on the what and how to record data. A lot of times we were given exactly what to write down and/or sentence frames to help us along. This article shows that the mechanical use tends to lack evidence of learning because all the students' notebooks look exactly the same. Therefore, it is really important that, we as teachers, allow for the science notebooks to foc more on the students' understanding of the concepts being taught. Fulton calls this idea insightful use.
Therefore, after reading the article and learning that information, I am wondering what are some fun and engaging techniques that teachers can incorporate into their lessons that will provide students with relevant reasons to go back through their science notebooks to find answers as well as actually wanting to write things down in it?
Also, why is it so common for teachers to fall into focusing more on the mechanical use of science notebooks than on the insightful use even though research proves that insightful use is much more beneficial to student growth and learning?
**link to the article - https://s3.amazonaws.com/nstacontent/sc1706_80.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIMRSQAV7P6X4QIKQ&Expires=1598451753&Signature=v5s1K8niBPEzwbF%2bagg4nkfBTJc%3d
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