Log Book Guidelines

Janet Bowersox, JanetBarks
NathanHaleHigh School
Seattle, WA

What is the purpose of a log book?

  1. To keep an up-to-date assignment record
  2. To keepallclass work in one place...notes, hand-outs, labs, returned quizzes, and homework
  3. To teach students an organizational method that reduces the loss of papers.
  4. To provide a record of one semester course work in one book.
  5. To allow students to review their progress or improvement in a course.

How do you organize a log book?

1. Number all pages in the book, front and back. Never remove a page!

(There are 200 pages in a wide line 7 1/2 x 9 3/4" MEAD bound composition book, cost $1 each)

2. Set aside the first 6-8 pages of the book. These pages are used for the table of contents, course information, and grading data.

3. Start each unit with2 assignment pages,either side by side or front and back. If teacher gives a 1/2 page unit outline/syllabus, this is taped in with the assignment pages.

Sample for l assignment page:(more than 1 page is needed for a 3-4 week unit)

Date / In Class Activities / Homework / Due Date
9/8 / Notes on food chains / Read pgs. 5-10 / 9/9
9/9 / Group campus activity / Review notes for quiz / 9/10
9/10 / Quiz & Start food chain lab / Lab follow-up ?'s / 9/11
9/11 / Lab completion check & discussion-make corrections / Correct returned quiz / 9/12

4. As the students complete work, it should be entered in the table of contents in the very front of the book.

Sample TABLE OF CONTENTS

Date / UNIT I ECOLOGY - Entry title / pages
9/8 / Assignments Unit 1 - Ecology / 10-11
9/8 / Notes on food chains / 12
9/9 / Group observations of campus - Look alike list / 13-15
9/10 / Lab and follow up ?'s - Make a food web / 16-17
9/11 / Returned quiz - taped in and corrected / 18

5. From our experience, students preferred doing assignments on consecutive pages. If teachers take the time to write the lesson in their log books prior to presenting to the class, they can estimate the number of pages necessary to finish an assignment and tell students to reserve the number of pages needed.

It is OK to leave some blank space or even a blank page. One semester of work fills 3/4 of one 200 page wide line "composition book". You may want students to skip a line between the questions they answer, so there is room to write comments or corrections.

6. Supplementary papers such as worksheets, data tables, video outlines, lab follow up questions, and quizzes are taped into the log book with the corresponding lesson and entered in the table of contents. Hint: If 8 1/2 X 14 inch paper is used, two assignments can be copied on one page. These 8 1/2 x 7" sheets fit nicely into the log book and cut photocopy costs. HAVE A LARGE TAPE DISPENSER!

7. At the end of each unit students paperclip all unit pagestogether so they can turn quickly to the current unit materials. Have students underline the last unit entry in the table of contents, and make a title line for the new unit. UNIT II - POPULATIONS

What is a Journal Write?

Periodically we assigned topics for journal writes. These were used either as homework ,or as opening/closure to a lesson. Journal writes may be used in number of different ways, but the main idea is to get students to clearly express their ideas and opinions in writing and to practice using examples or observations to support these ideas. These were usually short, not over l page.

  • Describe problems resulting from "introduced species" in your state.
  • What do you think the teacher wanted you to learn in this lab? ( cheek cells & tooth scrapings)
  • Recycled products - why are they so expensive if they are made of junk?
  • What did you find most interesting in this unit

How do you evaluate log books?

1. As assignments are due, teachers can do completion checks by doing a "walk-about" and either record a completion score, initial or stamp the work done, or both. This is a way to evaluate effort rather than content. This may be followed with class discussion where students are expected to write corrections in their logs.

2. About every 2 weeks, collect log books by class sets. At this time, one or two specific assignments are carefully looked at and teacher graded. Tell students ahead of time, which assignments will be graded.

3. At the end of each unit all log books are collected. Prior to this collection students are given a check list which allows them to organize and self-evaluate their log book, essentially a "completion check." (In addition, some assignments ca be teacher graded for content. ) This log check was weighted so that it was about 1/3-1/2 the total points of the unit test.

Sample UNIT LOG CHECK LIST

Unit 1 - Ecology
Log Check
name______period___
week of September 25th, ___points

STUDENTS: you do the first evaluation of your log book circling the C, I, M.
Please mark late work that needs grading- write LATE-GRADE THIS by assignment title

General- C = Complete I = Incomplete

C / I / Pages Numbered
C / I / Table of contents up to date ( in very front of log book)
C / I / Assignment Sheet up to date ( at the beginning of the unit)
C / I / All extra papers taped in. ( shake test)
C / I / General neatness etc.

Notes- C = Complete, I = Incomplete (>60%) M = missing (<60%)

C / I / M / 9/8 Food Chain Notes
C / I / M / 9/15 Biome notes etc.

Journal Writes- C = complete, I = incomplete (>60%), M = missing (<60%)

C / I / M / A food chain in my neighborhood.
C / I / M / My home range etc.

Assignments & Labs- 2=complete, 1=incomplete, 0=missing

2 / 1 / 0 / Group outside activity
2 / 1 / 0 / Food web lab with follow-up questions etc.

Parents and guardians: Please take the time to review your student's work in this book and sign this. If you have questions or comments, you may write them on the back of this page.

Thank you! Ms. Bowersox & Ms. Barks

We found when teaching several "log book" classes, it ihelped to collect one set of books/day - 1st period books on Monday, 2nd period books on Tuesday, etc. As the students get better at using the books, grading them goes much faster and it is possible to do one set/evening and finish them in a week. Rotate the order in which books are collected as the later classes get extra time.

LOST BOOKS: Surprisingly, there were very few lost books! Students were hesitant about loaning their books to another student, there was too much to lose! If a student lost the book, s/he was responsible for doing current work and making up current unit. I had some photocopies of MY assignment book..

I kept an "ASSIGNMENT LOG BOOK" for students to use for make-up work. It had assignments, notes, handouts, lab layouts, assigned questions...but no answers.