After two weeks of teaching I realized that my students were never going to open the textbooks that I gave them. Honestly, looking back, I’m surprised it took so long. So from that point forward I knew I would be teaching chemistry without a textbook. And I thought it was going to be really tough to figure out. But it turned out to be easier than I thought. Here’s how:
Using YouTube
There is SO MUCH free content available on YouTube to help kids learn. And likely, they are going to learn it better there than they would from reading anyway. It kind of just makes sense to use videos instead. There’s so much out there, that you don’t have to make anything yourself. You can curate videos from creators that you like and that align with what your teaching. I have a YouTube channel for chemistry content (with more on the way) if you’re in need.
When I first started teaching I curated videos on a site called Blendspace. Then I moved over to Google Classroom (which was still kind of new at the time.) And I’ve been on Classroom ever since. If you didn’t have Google Classroom, you could certainly create an email list and send out links to videos that you like to your students or their parents. Just make the subject like something easy to search: “April 22 – pH Scale” so it’s easy for kids to find (provided they don’t delete it). And if they do, you can go back through your sent folder and quickly resend the email.
Creating Baby Notes
In my first school, my kids were on field trips all the time. Like seriously, all the time. Out of the 19 or 20 days that I’d see them in a month, at least one was going to be a field trip. And because I was teaching the same course to different grades they were never all out at the same time. Meaning, it was always chaos for me and my planning. Especially because I was teaching chemistry without a textbook. Since, you know, kids don’t read them.
Because I could never keep all my classes on track I developed what I call Baby Notes. They started out as a tool for giving kids a quick rundown of what they missed when they were out. It really was like I had written a textbook, with each lesson fitting on a single page. One page of reading was certainly going to be better than having to read a few select pages out of a textbook. The Baby Notes system worked well for that school.
But then I moved schools, and the “not writing anything while I was teaching” thing wasn’t working. These kids actually made it to class! So I instead decided that the kids needed to write. At least a little bit. So I edited that Baby Notes to more so reflect interactive notebooks.
Just kidding, they’re not really interactive notebooks
Around this time, I started thinking about interactive notebooks and trying to turn my Baby Notes into INBs. But I realized very quickly that the whole concept of INBs didn’t really work for me. I wasn’t down for the divider tabs, the cut outs and all the moveable parts. So instead I made something that worked for me (and for my high school students).
On the left side of the page students would glue down a Baby Notes page. They are printed 2 per page in landscape mode, so it’s 5.5 x 8.5. Sometimes as I teach we color diagrams, color code, or highlight specific text. We ALWAYS write some fill in the blanks. Then on the right side of the page, kids get what I call a Q Card. It stands for question card. The kids will do some practice problems with their neighbor. After some time I give them all the answers. It’s a great time for us to just practice.
I like these a lot because I can make exactly what I want my students to learn. It’s not super heavy like a textbook. There’s no information that they should skip over. The kids can write in them all they want. And finally, I can make edits each year as I see fit (without trying to figure out how we’re going to buy new textbooks with our tiny science budget.)
In a lot of ways it’s easier to teach without a textbook
Yes, it certainly will require some work on your part to put together resources for your students. But in my experience, it helps kids to learn a lot better. They have a literal manual on your class. In my End of the Year Student Survey, I ask kids to write some advice for my incoming students. It’s pretty much a guarantee that the kids tell their peers to treasure that Baby Notebook! One student wrote, “carry it around like you would your wallet!” If that doesn’t sell you on custom notebooks, I’m not sure what will!
All in all, I like that the notebooks are super customizable. Same with the videos. You can create and curate exactly what you want and need! And since all kids, schools and teachers are different, customization is such an essential to teaching chemistry without a textbook (or anything for that matter).
