Interactive Notebooks for AP CSP

I hear you :slight_smile: I’m going to keep them in the classroom to cut down on “I lost my notebook” excuses!

Well I haven’t ever done journaling before (I’m from a math teacher background) but it was highly recommended at the AP Summer Institute I went to. Some of the prompt ideas they had were:
What were you surprised by today?
What were your take away’s from today’s class?
What were some difficulties you encountered in class today? (in regards to programming)

I was thinking of trying to incorporate a lot of current events with the topics we are covering. So if a DDoS attack happens asking them to respond about how they thought about the current event differently knowing what they know about DDoS attacks now? Or something like that if that makes sense!

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This is a fantastic idea. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for this information - I am going to try using an Interactive Notebook (never used one before) hope I don’t mess it up to much!

Katie- thanks for sharing this. I would like to start this for Unit 2. I’m not sure how far along you are but, if there is way you could share your Unit 2, I would very much appreciate it. Again, thanks for sharing your strategies with us!

Hi @stevensonj I have a few things in place for unit 2 but this is VERY MUCH a work in progress. Also, given the bit of re-design in unit 2 that came out last week, I am not sure how much I will add to Unit 2, Chapter 2.

Hopefully this will help for now. In the “Table of Contents” there are the links to the notes pages I have students do. Maybe when I have some time (probably June…) I will be able to clean this up a bit. ALSO, I would love to see what you add to it!

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@kaitie_o_bryan Thank you Katie! I love the interactive journal idea. I have the students journal online in a google document. I am going to add/teach them to add the table of contents to it. That is a great idea for them to have handy for review. I am currently teaching Unit 3 and loved your Top Down Design examples. Am going to review that with the students today. Will post one of their responses after class. Awesome resources. :thumbsup:

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Thanks! I just did the top down examples with my students the other day too - I think it helped a ton! They do that “snowflake” warm up where they learn about top down design but my students didn’t really apply top down design correctly the first time around (they just wrote down the code, not the function names).

In the notebooks, they had to think a lot more about what they would do AND when I told them these were scenes created by students last year, it set a higher bar for them to do better this year :slight_smile:

I had my students assemble the Interactive Notebook for Unit 1. We have moved on to Unit 2, and I was going to have them work on it. There is one foldable that you have that I can’t seem to figure out. It’s the “Numbers Text Colors” one. Can you provide some guidance please?

Sure! It should look a bit like the “physical internet” from unit 1. You need to do a bit of creative copying, but then it should be good to go.

I did update the document so it is a little more complete.

Thanks for sharing! I’m thinking of using a 3 ring binder w/notebook paper so they can journal as well as put handouts in it. I really thought I was going to have a paperless classroom but this will provide opportunities for kids with different learning styles to have something they can hang onto. Sometimes just seeing/doing things on the screen doesn’t seem concrete enough for kids.

Interesting! I like the idea of being able to incorporate handouts but I also get nervous about how well paper STAYS in a binder - with spiral notebooks I have noticed that the paper tears out with the weight of other things glued to it for some reason… that’s why I ask my students to get composition notebooks. The down side is I am always printing things at 70% and then students need to cut things out - it logistically is a lot messier. Let us know if the binder works! I hope it does!

I love the INB idea – I started with yours and have added my own along the way. I tend to make handouts on 1/2 pages and print two to a page and it fits nicely.
I am following the Code.org curriculum and really like the INB to help organize both me and the students!
Feel free to see/use my work in progress – I hope to add a document for each unit explaining the whole process.

INB Handouts
INB Example Pages

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Thanks for sharing this @gmoserc! I really like the color pages you used!

Thank you for this idea! It looks amazing, and I look forward to implementing a version of it in my courses for next year.

Thanks so much for sharing!!! I do an Interactive Notebook in my classes also (we called it our “Abstraction Notebook”) and I will definitely steal many of the handouts and half-page notes/info you posted!
As usual, you are amazing Katie!

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:blush: Thanks! My goal is to add to it for unit 5 this summer! Do you do anything in your “Abstraction Notebooks” for that unit?

Hope all is well!

Hi everyone,

I made these QUICKLY over the last few days. It is a mini-chapter on the reference language in preparation for the AP test. It isn’t quite as clean or put-together as the other materials, but since the test will be upon us soon, I thought I would post it now!

Hope it helps!
KT

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Goodness… for “quickly”, you get a LOT done! :astonished: Thanks for the comprehensive and targeted review/practice!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I struggled with note-taking, as well. I will be using your ideas.!