This module is the first module of a professional learning course on inclusive curriculum. Science notebooks are a powerful and flexible tool to support students’ sensemaking. The science notebook creates a space for students to document their thinking, develop and revise models, plan investigations, and analyze data—all of which serve as a record for students of how their ideas have evolved over time. Additionally, the strategic use of science notebooks provides opportunities for purposeful communication that are supportive of both science and language learning.

In this four-part professional book study, you will meet Jessica Fries-Gaither, author of NSTA's Notable Notebooks: Scientists and Their Writings, Exemplary Evidence: Scientists and Their Data, and the new Science Notebooks in Student-Centered Classrooms. Jessica and co-presenter Kristen Moorhead will draw on Jessica’s published works and their collective teaching experience to explore how sensemaking is supported by student-centered use of science notebooks.

Course Goals:

Build an understanding of how sensemaking is supported by use of science notebooks by exploring:

• the purposes and features of science notebooks.
• the organizational continuum of teacher-directed notebook structures and student-directed notebook entries.
• science notebook strategies that reflect Jessica Fries-Gaither’s guiding principles
• how science notebooks can be used as formative assessment.

Resources supporting learning in this course can be accessed from Science Notebooks in Student-Centered Classrooms Collection (Science Notebooks in Student-Centered Classrooms Collection (referred to as the “collection” across the four modules). If you would like to purchase Science Notebooks in Student-Centered Classrooms to read as you engage in this course, resource #5 in the collection includes a link to the book in the NSTA Bookstore. You do not need to purchase the book to participate in the course.

The modules in this course will follow the chapters in Jessica Fries-Gaither’s book.