Five Good Reasons to Use Science Notebooks

 "Five Good Reasons to Use Science Notebooks"

I have always been a fan of using science notebooks or journals, as I call them, in the classroom.  This article basically reinforced my reasoning behind it.  I do, however, feel that the article put a little extra "warm fuzzies" into the idea that can be miss leading.  The big idea of the article is to portray the importance of these science notebooks and how they helped the teachers and students in that specific school, and many other schools.  Each reason addresses important issues that a teacher should have in any subject matter not just teacher.  Student empowerment, ability for teachers to know their students, communication skills improvement, differentiated learning, and teacher collaboration are important pieces to educating our students.  I do not believe that if you implement science notebooks in your classroom you will get amazing results, unless the proper work is put into them on both the teacher and student side of the it.

The two most important reasons why I will use science notebooks is so that students can see their improvements and actively be a part of their own learning.  As the article said, "The notebook is a tool that encourages students to use writing for thinking and empowers them to become active in their own learning." The second most important aspect of the journal for me is to be able to see where my students are.  I can't help students learn if I have no idea of what they already know and the science notebooks would be one great way to manage that.