Skip to main content

Studying for Tests




Someone had a question about using the notebooks to study for tests. Good question!

As mentioned in a much earlier post, I generally do not let the notebooks leave the classroom. I worked with a group of students my first year who did not take care of their supplies and often things that went home never came back. This was extremely frustrating so I stopped sending the notebooks home.

Instead I adopted the study guide above from a co-teacher (thanks Ms. Gannon!). The children, parents, and I love it. Basically you create a two table grid in a word document (see first picture). You put a question on one side and the answer on the other. You can leave the answer part blank and students can fill that in during class. I only had about 45 minutes with my students last year and for the sake of time I would only leave a few blank that they would either fill out as we reviewed the study guide or I would give them a set amount of time to fill in the blanks using their notebook and then reviewed.

The paper can then be folded in half (see second and third picture above) and students can self quiz themselves (questions will be on one side, they try to answer, and then they flip it over to check themselves).

I usually talk to my students about being strategic when using this study guide. Example - Don't waste time studying the things you know. If you know the information concentrate on the things you don't know...put a star by those questions. I find that students overwhelm themselves when studying in general. I stress that they already know more things then they think they do. If they can isolate a few items instead of all the items they do much better. If I have time I pair them off for about 10 minutes to study and have them put stars on the things they need to study better so at least I know they have looked at it more then once. This may be common sense for most of us but I find that fourth graders are just developing these skills and they need practice being strategic.

I have a place for parents to sign at the top and if they turn in their study guide with a parent signature they get five extra points on the test.

In one of my classes I had a large group that were really having trouble focusing and the last thing they did at home was study. I would give them about 15 minutes immediately before the test to pull out their study guide (always having extras on hand) to look over. I figure that would at least give some students a fighting chance of passing.

There are some teachers who do send their notebooks home and have them review pages ___ - _____ for the test. Nothing wrong with that. I really dislike having to deal with forgotten, misplaced, or lost notebooks and the system above works for me. My game plan next year is to have students take the notebooks home for a parent signature at the end of each unit but they will continue to stay with me in the classroom the bulk of the time.

Comments

Elaina Weaver said…
Thank you for addressing this. I love your method and will definitely be trying it out.
Elaina Weaver said…
I had another question for you. Sorry to bother you with my questions, but you have great understandable answers.

Do you ever have a left hand side where you don't have a right hand side assignment?

The Bingo for example... what side do you put this on? What is on the opposing side?
Eve Heaton said…
No bother...there are lots of times where I don't have a right hand assignment. I use the left hand/right hand more of a guide which I stick to about 90% of the time. There are just simply times where the information needs to go over on to the next page or my lab paperwork needs to be on two pages, etc. The Bingo board I put on the right hand side and on the left hand side I will put the list of words and definitions we are using for the game, usually in a folded brochure format so students who don't need to refer back to the list can leave it closed. When I first started out I really tried to keep to the left hand/right hand rule but realized that in some instances it isn't practical and I became more flexible about it. Hope that helps!

Eve
Thanks so much for posting this blog! Esp the pictures of student work, it makes it more concrete for me to see it in practice.

I teach 5th grade science and am restucturing my lessons to fit the interactive notebook format. This blog has given me so many ideas! I will be planning over the summer and will read your posts often.
Eve Heaton said…
I'm glad you are enjoying the site. I need pictures as well, which is why I post so many.

Some of my students are more motivated to do a good job when I tell them I post their work on this site or show off their books to other teachers or at a conference.

Good luck with your interactive notebooks! I would love to see pictures of what your students are doing when you get started.

Eve

Popular posts from this blog

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Activity

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock&

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

Rock Cycle Activity

Today I got to spend the day with a 3rd grade science teacher doing a rock cycle activity. She had asked for help a couple of weekends ago to find some engaging rock cycle activities for her students. I quickly did a Pinterest search and came up with a link to a middle school blog where they featured a fun looking rock cycle station activity. That website took me to the originating activity site - Illinois State Museum Geology Online and their Ride the Rock Cycle activity . I read through it and felt it was doable for third graders (although I was a little nervous about the cartooning). I offered my help and we put together the activity. The kids did it WONDERFULLY. It was one of those lesson you wish was observed (but of course never is :) They are on an alternating science schedule so she only had two of the four classes today but it was a good sampling of children. She had one class that had a high portion of struggling learners and the second class had a high