Since I am trying very hard to limit grades in my entrepreneurship class, I have been focusing on reflection followed by feedback as a way to make sure learners know where they are in their learning. As a proficiency-based class, I think that reflection is a key component of the assessment process. Unfortunately, students have a very difficult time writing meaningful reflections. They frequently discuss what they did rather than what they learned. They focus on the learning scale number rather than the language associated with the learning progression. I realize why these two things happen. We have taught kids to focus on completing assignments and rely on grades for motivation so, I get it. I recently stumbled upon the idea of interactive notebooks and thought they might offer a way to scaffold the reflection process.

Digital interactive notebooks are not new apparently but they were new to me. Digital interactive notebooks can be created in powerpoint or google slides. Matt Miller @jmattmiller has some awesome ideas about the many ways that digital interactive notebooks can be used. One reason I liked the idea was that I could use Google classroom to easily assign each student the notebook. A notebook can be designed for any subject and personalized for your needs or the student’s needs. I created a notebook that walks students through the learning process for a unit long learning scale in entrepreneurship and checks in along the way.

I designed one specifically trying to improve the quality of reflections. I asked specific questions in order to drive student thinking in a certain direction and created a space next to their responses for me to provide feedback. I added places for students to pre-assess and make second drafts of their work along the way. It seems like the options for digital interactive notebooks are endless. Teachers Pay Teachers has many examples of templates for these notebooks. They are a little bit time consuming to make but after one is completed, the process is easier. In addition, if you have something routine that you do like teach fiction novels, one template could be used for any book. If you are using an #interactivenotebook to improve engagement, Tweet @fearlessteachrs or comment here.