Digital and Video Answer Keys

Last year I finally got the genius idea to make digital answer keys for each INB page. While that takes a while obviously, I was writing them out every year to have an answer key for absent students.

This year, I only have to do the first couple in each unit. I also thought I would upload them somewhere in Google Classroom for students to access.

I also never thought of saving them as a pdf so the formatting won't get messed up. So this year I will save them as a pdf and upload to my google drive. I'm thinking I will create a google doc or spreadsheet with the pdf links and post it in Classroom. Then there is only one post for students to look for and I can update after each lesson with the INB answer key pdf.

The big project I wanted to do over summer but procrastinated never got to was to make a video of myself explaining and writing out the notes for each skill. But multiply that times 4 preps and we're talking at least 120+ videos.

Ov. Er. Whelm. Ing.

What I did do was update all my powerpoints and then saved each slide as a JPEG. My idea is that I can use the Show Me app on my ipad, insert the pictures, then record my voice talking while I fill in the notes with a stylus.

I've never actually used the ShowMe app but I think I can get a link to the video and add it to the previously mentioned doc/spreadsheet. So there would be a video and pdf answer key for each skill.

It sounds simple in my head but so time consuming. I thought maybe I could do it after I teach the lesson so it will be fresh and also spaced out over the year instead of trying to do them all at once in the summer.

But I don't wanna. Lol

Advice?

Tips?

Feedback?

INB Math Tools Pocket and Fold Out Flap

I usually start off my INBs with a Table of Contents on the first page but I don't want to start page numbers until I actually start math skills.

To change it up, I created a Math Tools Pocket. On the outside I had them color. On the inside is a mathematical smartness survey and the right side asks them to write down their Delta math password and Remind code (Thanks Julie).

The above picture shows the Calculator Tips strips we used today. Anytime we have a 'tutorial' so to speak, I plan to make them on strips to store in the pocket.

Here is the file:



Fonts are Zengo and Covered by your grace.

On the back cover we tape a fold out flap so they can see perfect squares, cubes, and fourths withouth flipping back and forth. The other side talks about growth mindset.

Here's the file:

Font is Digs My Hart.

The Calculator Tips strips came from TpT and then I added some parts that I wanted. Here is the link and I just used the snipping tool and resized them to make strips.

Everyone got the two strips and then I passed out a handout for them to practice. This is also a good way to see who can follow directions and work independently.

Here is the file of just the part I added to the TpT file:



Fonts are HelloKennedy and HelloBestDay

And here is the handout:



Last but not least, for the first time I had students use pen and copy this labeling template so they know how I want all pages labeled forever. Color coded.

Interactive Notebooks vs. Binders

I've gotten this question a lot in the last few weeks so that must mean I need to blog about it.

I love INBs but I also use binders and people ask me how or why I use both.

My curriculum came with notes in the Cornell style on a regular portrait 8.5x11 page. I reformatted them to fit on on a landscape 8.5x11 page. We cut those in half and then tape one on the left hand page and one on the right hand page. If the notes are more than one page then I make it front to back and we fold them in half so that each side is a full page. Of course the back is blank because they tape that into the notebook.

Every skill has two pages, the left and right. I don't start page numbers until the first skill so Skill #1 is page 1-2. This helps everyone keep track. So when we get so Skill #27, I already know the page numbers will be 53-54.

I do a new table of contents for every unit. It has 8 spaces for skills so I will break that up into two tests over four skills each. Each unit is a different color of paper and has a colored tab.

I do not give homework. My curriculum came with activities and homework. So if there is an activity planned for that specific skill, I turn the homework into a review game.

A typical week would go like this:

• Monday-introduce new skill; fill in and tape notes into notebook
• Tuesday- use notebook to do a review game or practice activity; end class with a quiz over that skill
• Wendnesday- pass back quizzes and offer retakes; pass out new skill notes to fill in and tape into notebook
• Thursday- finish notes, do practice activity
• Friday- quiz over second skill, pass out new skill notes to fill in and tape into notebook
• After 4-5 skills, do a study guide. Students work independently, check their answers that I've hung up on a cabinet, and ask for extra help where needed.
• After study guide, students take tests and are allowed to use their notebooks

Quizzes I offer retakes but no notebook. Tests I do not offer retakes but I allow them to use the notebook. This motivates them to do a good job of taking notes because they know how useful the notebook will be. I don't think they should need the notes for a one skill quiz that they've been focused on two days in a row. But after 4-5 skills, there are more things to remember. And I'm not focused on what they can memorize but how they can use it.

INB Hacks

After four years of regularly using Interactive Notebooks, I'd like to share some hacks.

1. Tabs and Pill Box

I've written before about how I make and use tabs for each unit in the INB, but I also wanted to mention that I do each unit in a different color of paper but I follow the same pattern for each prep. 

At the top I have book marks. We use file size rubber bands and hole punch the back cover; this helps keep the notebook closed as it gets fatter. I use duck tape on the spine to also help keep the notebook closed. This was the first year that I bought the same notebook for every prep but I mean, how could I not when it's teal and chevron?

And like the picture at the top of this post, I decorate a pill box with the numbers of each period. I laminate the tabs, cut, and store in here for students to get.

2. Digital Table of Contents

This year was the first time I thought of this idea and it has been SO great. In previous years, I had a whiteboard designated solely to INB Table of Contents. I drew a little template and then wrote in the titles when I passed out new pages. Buttt with four different preps, sometimes they got confused and copied down the wrong title or page numbers. Sometimes things got erased. So this year I made a powerpoint for each prep. I even colored the slides to match the tabs and pages in each unit. As students were taking a quiz, I would update the title on the slide and display it. This was students' cue to get their new pages after a quiz, cut, tape, and label. This will also help me remember the titles, order, and colors for next year. It's already ready to go!

3. Cut in Half and Fold Lines

While most of my INB pages are single pages cut in half , sometimes folding is involved. Or flaps. Or sometimes students forget which page goes on the left and on the right after they cut them apart. This year I started putting notes of where to fold and tape.

I plan to put LHP and RHP and a dotted cut line on all of the regular pages for next year.

4. Table of Contents

I've also mentioned this in the previous post but I updated it again to included little bars for students to color in as a self-assessment.

5. Unit Reflections

I made a slightly different unit reflection for each unit. I worked hard on factoring in our bell ringers so I also put them on the unit reflection. The one question I asked every unit was for them to rate their effort.

This link to my box.com folder shows all my unit reflections.

6. Paper Trays
One of the best things I ever did was to set up these paper trays and my box of tabs on the chrome book cart. After every quiz or test, everything was laid out for them to add to their INB and the new title was displayed on the SMART board.

7. Google Form Binder Check

I only 'grade' notebooks once a quarter and I do it by having students trade binders and answer 10 questions. Basically they are looking for things in the binder and notebook: specific answers, labeling, organization. This year I used a Google Form and it graded itself! Magnifical.

This is my first time trying to embed a form so please let me know if it doesn't work.



I really love INBs and I'd love to hear your hacks or ideas you've seen others do! Also everything is much cuter when you download it than it looks in these widgets!

INB Goodies

Every year I change my table of contents for my INB so you'll be glad to know this year is no different. See past versions here.

I really liked the box split in half for page numbers. I did not like the boxes underneath each concept title. I did not like that I called it a skill and a concept on the same page....like what?



I simplified it and added more rows. {Fonts are ChunkFive Roman and Running for a cause} Another change I made came from a great PD strategy. I put a circle in front of each skill. I'm going to ask students to shade in the circle based on how confident they feel about doing it. I figure I'll ask three times, using a different color each time: the day after they learn it, after they take a quiz over it, and on study guide day. It's powerful to watch the circles fill up.

I'm really trying to build in regular reflection so that's one small way.

Another larger way is to have a reflection page for the whole unit. We always start a new unit with a table of contents page on the RHP, leaving the LHP empty. Seems like a great place to summarize the previous unit.

I stole all of this from Sarah Carter {see here and here} but I would still love your feedback. I used her reflection post to make changes.



Next on my reflection agenda is to steal Kathryn Belmonte's idea of student nominations. Please check out her presentation here and my summary here.

Does this count as a close? {Two birds. One stone.} I want to end class with reflection time but also use the idea of nominations as positive peer pressure to take it home and make it better. I obviously gave up on homework again but I really did like the idea of a reflection question. Maybe I will switch it up between asking on Google Classroom or Remind and the INB reflection assignment.

Feedback?

#MTBos30: iPad INB Project

Earlier in the year I had a great idea of making a digital copy of each student's INB.

Here's what I came up with: iPad INB Project

This is a google doc (it's a copy so you can edit it or make your own copy) with step by step directions on uploading pictures into google docs.

We put each unit into a separate document. The project ends with making a table of contents with links to each unit in it. Students e-mail me their link to the table of contents only and I can assess it by clicking on the links to each unit. I also asked them to send a link to an alternate e-mail address. I want them to have access to this forever, even after they no longer have a school e-mail address.

My whole intention is that they can have this as a reference for their future math classes- you never know what your future might hold. I had to point out that each picture should be clear and legible.

Sadly, a lot of students thought this was just end of the year busy work but I really thought about this for months and thought it was important and useful.

If you actually read all my directions, I'd like to share a tip. It is possible for students to take all the pictures first and then upload them into the doc. Our problem was that my entire cart of ipads is registered to the same itunes account. Which means, all the photos from all 20 ipads go into the same gallery. =( So rather than sorting through hundreds of pictures, I had students insert them one at a time to be sure they were using their own work.

Also be sure to remind them to take pictures of things that are folded or under flaps.

I fully expected this to take forever and be difficult {because, I mean, technology.} But it actually went fairly smoothly and is only taking about two class periods.

If you would like this as a Word document to print and hand to students, here is a copy:



This is my first dive into going paperless and google docs. Next year I hope to take advantage of Google Classroom so I'm pretty excited that this went well.

#MTBoS30: Notebook/Binder Grade

Throughout the year I did short 10 point notebook/binder checks. I really want them to stay organized. So for the end of the year, I wanted to do something a little bigger.

Here's what I came up with:



They were not allowed to use their binders because I included problems from the bell ringers on this. Some students still didn't know how to calculate the error, error percentage, or the balance bender puzzles. Even though we did them for 35 WEEKS IN A ROW! Since it wasn't for a grade, some students didn't think it was worth learning. =(

The rest is just listing everything from the table of contents because it's the most important organizational tool.

The last page will not be of any use to anyone else but I included 5 questions from each period where they had to locate and write down answers from each unit in their INB.

This should be an easy way for them to get points if they just FOLLOW MY DIRECTIONS.

#MTBoS30 System of Equations: Elimination

I'm prepared to kill three birds with one stone:

1. I'm shooting for a goal of 110 posts this calendar year to break my all time best record of 109 posts so 30 posts in 30 days will really help my count.
2. I'm continuing an unintentional series about systems of equations from 2011 (how many solutions, graphing and substitution)
3. Answering @k8nowak's January call to share the unsexy, borderline boring basics.

My normal way of teaching is to do INB pages together as a class as notes and then some kind of worksheet/structure/activity to practice. Since January I've been working really hard at not giving worksheets. But this, for some reason, is just one of my golden worksheets that somehow works like a charm.

It starts with really simple vertical addition problems that lead into elimination where one variable automatically cancels out. It just keeps building from there up until you have to multiply both equations and change the sign. 

I give this out first before we ever do any notes. We do 1-5 together and then it's like you have unleashed the krakken and you can't get them to stop. Some of the problems have answer banks so they are not shown in the powerpoint. But honestly, I barely use the powerpoint anyway because they can't be bothered to look up from their papers to watch me.

It's love.

And I don't really even know why but this is probably the sixth year in a row that I've used it. After we finish this, I give them examples to put in their INBs (stolen from here) but it's more like an afterthought after all the time they've spent working these problems. (BTW this took about three full 47 minute class periods.)

It also seems to motivate them to rework problems when they mess up without me having to push for it. My guess is they like that it is answered with a nice and tidy ordered pair and they feel a sense of accomplishmeny when they finish.

But I'm just guessing.

It's definitely unsexy....and yet so satisfying!

Properties of Diagonals

This lesson comes straight up stolen from @pamjwilson. I used it last year for the first time as a full class period lesson. I used it again this year as an intro into properties of quadrilaterals.

She explains it way better than me so you can go read it. Seriously. Go. But I can share some photos from my class and the INB pages we did last year.

This is based off of an activity called The Kite Task but I couldn't find any more information on it other than what Pam posted about.

Here's the literal kite shape. The green and blue 'braces' are two different lengths. Each student gets a combination of three pieces so that they can build with congruent diagonals and without. A gold brad or fastener is used to hold them together and then they trace. Last year we used legal sized pink paper and this year they literally drew on the desk (with dry erase markers).

Next year I'm thinking chart paper and making them go to the board and switch writers each time so that there is more participation. Maybe even a competition to see which group can get the most unique combinations?

Not going to lie, the students struggled with creating different combinations besides the one example of the kite that I showed them to start with. I had a few students who I think had no idea what had just happened at the end of the activity.

A lot of students started by literally tracing the braces so we had to go over the fact that we were looking for four-sided figures.

Last year we did an entire set of INB pages just on diagonals. This year I incorporated it with our quadrilateral properties pages. Here are pictures of both.

What other suggestions do you have to make this activity better?

Algebra II Unit 4: Quadratics Interactive Notebook

Unit 4: Quadratics

Page 33-34 LHP Wax paper parabolas stolen from Sarah Carter. Interesting to do but we never came back to directrix again. RHP I loved this super cute envelope and the idea of these flash cards- color coded even- but it's just sooo much information. It's really hard for students to keep all of these separate.

Page 35-36 All my factoring stuff comes from Sarah Carter. And the Zero Product Property came from Google.

Page 37-38 Giant plus or minus sign again comes from Sarah Carter.

Page 38-39 I think I created this myself but I'm not sure. I liked having students decide what form on the RHP before solving but again, this is a lot of information to cover and keep straight.

Page 41-42 I will always and forever teach completing the square geometrically, thanks to Mimi!

Page 43-44 I've been doing a discriminant sort for a couple years where students find the discriminant and then sort into three groups. This was the first year of me realizing the magic of having students find the discriminant first, then plug in their answer under the square root and do the rest of the quadratic formula. Somehow, there are way less arithmetic mistakes this way.

Here are the files:

Algebra I Unit 4: Systems Interactive Notebook

Unit 4: Systems

Page 35-36  LHP borrowed from Mrs. Hester and the right side is mine. The outside shows what the lines look like and the inside shows what the equations look like.

Page 37-38 I love this because it forces students to read directions and learn more about the calculator. They sketch the graph and write the solution as an ordered pair.

Page 39-40 I printed these in color for the students as well and we tried to match our work to the printed pages to get in the habit of the correct steps.

Page 41-42 came from here and I liked how it showed the two different methods with the steps out to the side.

Page 43-44 LHP I might have stole these from somewhere but I think I ended up changing them to my own so if they are yours, I apologize. These were great for sorting and matching because students couldn't just use the numbers in the problem since those same numbers were used in other problems. I think this is a great scaffold to actually writing the equations themselves. We wrote underneath the flaps for obvious reasons on the RHP.

Page 45-46 LHP is mine and the RHP page is a borrowed idea from @samjshah. Students used different colored markers to mark on a continuum which would be the best method and then explain why underneath.

4

Page 47-48 I thought I stole this from Sarah Carter but maybe I just modified her one-variable inequality idea. Either way, she gets the credit, I used the superman S as a reminder to write an S over the solution set and pick an ordered pair that is a solution. RHP I had them decide on solid or dotted before we did any solving to keep them from ignoring that part.

And here are the files: