6 Full Option Science System
Science Notebooks in Grades 3–6
Refi nement of practice. As teachers, we are constantly looking
for ways to improve instructional practices to increase students’
understanding. Your use of the notebook should change over time.
In the beginning, the focus will be on the notebook itself—what it
looks like, what goes in it. As you become more comfortable with the
notebook, the attention shifts to what students are learning. When
this happens, you begin to consider how much scaff olding to provide
to diff erent students, how to use evidence of learning to diff erentiate
instruction, and how to modify instruction to refi ne students’
understanding.