Our district has placed a strong emphasis on intentional vocabulary instruction and clearly identifying essential outcomes. I have also been attending several math leadership trainings, and one of our sessions was over the importance of journaling in the math classroom, and the impact it has on student learning. With that in mind, I wanted to share an algebra journal template (adapted from here) I’ve been using in my classroom.
I gave my students a few minutes to edit their background color. You can do this by tapping on the paint brush and changing the page background color.
All of the following pages have been added to the document template, so they do not have to duplicate old pages, they just need to add a new page, and selecting one of the following options from the menu.
For now, I have been posting my journal prompts on my TV, or writing them on my whiteboard, then students can take a picture of the prompt and put it in the media placement holder. They have the option to use lined paper, blank paper, or graph paper. I love that students have the choice of how they want to journal. They can type their responses, they can write them with an Apple Pen, they can record their answers, or they can write it out on paper (or on their desk) and take a picture of it!
I then have added sections for vocabulary and our essential outcomes, so they can track their success of accomplishing those outcomes. I plan to add additional vocabulary template pages. Again, students have voice and choice of how they add their information to these!
This is set up for my Algebra I and Algebra II classes, but it can be adapted for any class! To change the template from saying “Algebra Journal,” you can tap on the page thumbnail, then select “Edit Page Template” and edit the text.
How could you use this journal template in your classroom?
Attach up to 5 files which will be available for other members to download.