Peering Inside the Black Box of Classroom Learning

It is often very difficult to see what students are doing when they work; you have to stand over them, crouch down, lean your shoulder in. Your mere presence changes the students’ behaviours – they freeze under observation, their thought processes get interrupted and many can be physically and emotionally uncomfortable with your close presence and observation. To differentiate instruction and to ensure that students are progressing with their learning, we need to be able to see their work and provide feedback as often and as thoroughly as possible. Microsoft OneNote is a great tool to achieve this - it has an open format within a structure that teachers and students are traditionally familiar with – it has notebooks, sections reminiscent of Hilroy™ paper tabs and pages on which to write, draw, collect and compose. And it has the convenience of an infinite amount of blank, lined and graph paper to work with – ideas can grow without bound. This whitepaper documents how Appleby College in Canada uses Microsoft OneNote to enhance the learning experience in the classroom.