Notebooks 103

Building on the work done by El Centro Superintendent Mike Klentschy at our recent SLIP (Science and Literacy Integration Project) Institutes, Laurie Thompson, director of Cal Tech's CAPSI Program,  led a 2-day retreat for 45 teachers from the KITES Project including guest teachers from Coventry, Cumberland and Johnston.  Laurie and Mike have been working for over 10 years in the El Centro School District in raising student achievement in science and literacy.  Mike has published his data which indicates that students scores in writing (as an example) went  a 19% passing rate to a 90%  rate passing in just 4 years of immersion in an inquiry science program which is based on student demonstration of concept understanding through student notebooks.  

Laurie's 2-day presentation focused on a model for student notebooks based on National Science Education Standards for student writing in inquiry and used extensively in El Centro:

• Questions/Problem/Purpose

• Prediction

• Planning

• Data/Observations

• What Have you Learned? (claims and evidence)

• Next Steps/New Questions

Laurie's warm presentation style reflects her 38 years of classroom experience.  One of the first things she did was to recruit a "word wizard" from the audience to list the important vocabulary on a chart for the group.  Her lesson centered around a 4th grade unit on electricity where the students are asked to light a light bulb.  She focused the attention of the audience on several key ideas: a data organizer or topic question, clear and accurate diagrams, examples of evidence where the light bulb lit and where it did not, claims and evidence of the "critical contacts points" the job of the wires and of the battery and specific strategies on how to provide meaningful, timely feedback to students which is corrective in nature. 

Finally, Laurie brought the research of W. James Popham, "The Seductive Allure of Data" (Education Leadership/February 2003) on effective assessment: 

• Does the notebook measure genuinely worthwhile skills and knowledge?

• Will teacher be able to promote student mastery of what's measured in the assessment?

• Can the skills and knowledge measured by the assessment be described in language sufficiently clear for instructional planning?

• Does the assessment yield results that allow the teacher to know which parts of the instruction were effective or ineffective?

• Does the assessment take up too much instructional time?

Grade level teams of participating teachers then began to examine one of their science units, looking for a lesson to apply their new understandings to.  Teachers identified the essential questions for the unit, and began to explore how they might structure their students working in notebooks to help them focus on the important ideas of the unit, and to find ways to demonstrate their understanding through writing and diagrams. 

Our goal at the East Bay Collaborative is to continue this work, which builds on our partnership with Rhode Island College in the summer series of SLIP Institutes by inviting both Laurie and Mike Klentschy back to RI next summer for SLIP IV (pending approval of funding from the Rhode Island Board of Higher Education).