SMART Notebook teacher guide

Instructional ideas

Engage your class by importing existing lesson and curriculum resources and adding interactive activities.

• Add an interactive activity or an assessment to the file you imported.

• Create a three-page SMART Notebook file with a hook, learning experience, and a check for understanding:

  • Page 1: The hook–Spark curiosity and grab students’ attention.

  • Page 2: Learning Experience–Layer an engaging activity to help your students work with the subject matter.

  • Page 3: Check for understanding–Use activities or assessments.

Enhance lessons by downloading SMART Notebook files from SMART Exchange and customize them for your class.

• Introduce your lesson, the hook, by adding a YouTube video or an activity like Fill in the Blanks to spark curiosity in your students.

• Add a quote, a picture, a short poem, or line from a song to a blank page. Have students participate in a Chalk Talk.

Extend learning by importing student created content.

• Create a SMART Notebook file for use in centers or stations.

  • Use Infinite Cloner to build math stations, or create a variety of activities to reinforce learning.

  • Use the timer to help students know when to rotate to their next station.

• Check for understanding: Use Shout It Out!, assessments, or writing on a blank Notebook page as students leave as an exit ticket or when they arrive as an entrance ticket.

Instructional ideas

• Engage your class by inserting images of possible characters, settings, and problems. Students can work in small groups to create a story based on the images.

• Enhance your lessons by using an image that sparks curiosity and questions about an upcoming unit or topic. Have students come up and write or draw over the image. They can share what they’re thinking about, things they wonder, questions they have, and connections they’ve made.

• Extend learning by using images that link to other pages in a SMART Notebook lesson or even to a website you would like your students to visit. Linking to another page within a lesson is a terrific way to differentiate stations or content for students.

Instructional ideas

• Engage your class using the text tool to add questions that help start a class discussion, activate prior knowledge, or communicate key ideas.

• Enhance your lessons by adding text and a shape. Group the objects and lock them to move only horizontally or vertically to reveal more key information.

• Extend learning by hiding grouped shapes and text off the page. Students can extend their learning by sliding out the images to discover new challenges, extra hints, or connected ideas.

Instructional ideas

Engage your class using SMART activities to get students interacting with your lesson.

• Spark curiosity or introduce vocabulary using the Fill In the Blanks activity, which works well with a quotation, poem, or definition. Students organize the words and reflect on possible meanings. Discuss.

• Practice and review: use Match ’Em Up for vocabulary or math practice, or try Game Show for a fun review.

• Use formative assessments to check for understanding. Monster Quiz gives instant feedback. The class can review and dispel misconceptions at the end.

  See Game-based Learning with SMART Activities for more ideas.

Enhance your lessons by using SMART’s interactive activities to build deeper understanding of concepts and demonstrate applied higher-order thinking skills.

• Reinforce learning with Super Sort. Have students sort examples and non-examples of concepts.

• Use the Rank Order tool to help students explain their thinking by ranking concepts from most to least important or most influential to least.

  Tip 

  Select Do not check to create open-ended answer possibilities.

Extend learning by creating a pretest followed by two or three levels of activities and an extension task. Students will complete activities based on their needs in or outside of class.

• Give students assignments that offer choices:

  • Flip Out: Give students a variety of learning experiences and let them choose which they would like to do.

  • Label Reveal: Give differentiated tasks for parts of an image.

Instructional ideas

Engage your students with formative assessments. Use the Response assessment to get instant data and meet with students to give them personal and immediate feedback.

• Create a poll or a survey to set the stage for a great Socratic Dialogue or debate with students. Use polls and surveys to get to know your students and build relationships.

Enhance your lesson by using data from the Response assessment to drive instruction (review, skip ahead, grouping, and so on).

• Create a two-question pretest. Use the short-answer question type so students cannot guess. Look at the data. Did students miss both? Need intervention. Did they get both right? Ready for a challenge. One right, one wrong? Ready for instruction.

• With the click of a button, you can export the student data from the assessment as an Excel spreadsheet.

  Tip 

  When students connect to the activity, have them enter their last names or sign in with Microsoft or Google so the spreadsheet matches your gradebook.

Extend learning by giving students differentiated tasks based on the results of a Response assessment.

• Give a pretest that allows students to test out of material they’ve mastered and work on a project or a leveled-up assignment.

• Add differentiated game-based activities and a choice board using Flip Out or Label Reveal for extension tasks. Students will complete certain tasks based on assessment results.

Instructional ideas

Engage students by adding scholarly and culturally responsive YouTube videos and introduce them to experiences or ideas that they haven’t encountered before.

• Insert a video that will encourage curiosity. Pause it at a point that will cause students to wonder. Allow students to ask questions and make predictions.

• Add a video to encourage empathy and understanding about different backgrounds and perspectives.

Enhance your lesson by adding related SMART activities alongside the video.

• Add a blank page for students to share connections after watching the video.

• Add a Shout It Out! activity where students can identify connections to the video’s main idea. Start the Shout It Out! activity and have students use it as a back channel as they watch the video. After the video is over, go back to the Shout It Out! to sort, discuss, and label student contributions.

Extend learning by making the whole lesson available outside of class to reinforce concepts for a Flipped Classroom.

• Find a video that brings the lesson together and watch it as a class to close the lesson. Have students record questions about the video. Use their questions to start the next class.

• Create a Flip Out activity with a series of questions or problems. Have students respond to or solve two or three of the questions or problems after watching the video.

Instructional ideas

• Engage students by creating manipulatives for hands-on learning, in-class discussions, and morning meetings.

  • Use manipulatives to practice math concepts and build number sense (for example, base ten blocks, hundreds chart, patterns, and five and ten frames).

  • Use the Infinite Cloner to track daily tasks on a calendar, such as the lunch count, how you are going home, and so on.

• Enhance lessons by adding manipulatives for students to use in stations or small groups.

  • Add images of coins and bills. Set each to be infinitely cloned. Have students work in small collaborative groups to create various amounts of money or to solve word problems using coins and bills.

  • Create a "making words" lesson by adding letters and setting each one to be infinitely cloned. Have students use the letters to make the mystery word.

  • Clone numbers and math signs, allowing students to build a variety of equations. Students can then write word problems to connect to the math equations.

• Extend learning by adding infinitely cloned shapes to rubrics for student self-assessment.

Instructional ideas

• Engage your class by inserting links to related resources.

  • Link to current events and news articles that are connected to your lesson.

  • Link to curated museum exhibitions and 3D tours.

  • Link to music that connects to the theme of the lesson.

• Enhance your lessons by using links to other pages in a SMART Notebook lesson or to a website you’d like your students to visit. Linking to another page within a lesson is a terrific way to differentiate stations or content for students.

  • Create links to challenge pages.

  • Create links to support information, such as key vocabulary and definitions.

  • Add links to review videos so students have support resources at their fingertips.

• Extend learning by using links to create HyperDocs where students can use varied resources to draw conclusions and create a variety of student-created products.

  • Create or import HyperDocs into SMART Notebook for students to use during stations.

  • Create choice boards that link to a variety of Web 2.0 applications (blogs, social networking sites, Wikipedia, and so on).

Instructional ideas

Engage your class with interactive widgets for hands-on learning and classroom management.

• Use the clock widget; choose analog, digital, or both. Students can move the clock hands to practice telling time and to work on elapsed time problems.

• Use the timer widget to help students know when time is up on a classroom task or to rotate between stations.

Enhance your lessons with widgets to guide student creation and small group learning.

• Use the dice or spinner widgets on a whiteboard space for students to use as content for challenges. For example:

• Create a writer’s dice, with sides for setting, character, problem, and so on. Have students roll it to help frame their writing.

• Create a Math spinner with numbers and math symbols and have students spin it to create their own math problems.

• Use two dice for an onset/rime challenge. Customize one dice with onsets and the other with rimes. Have students roll both dice and establish if the resulting word is a real or nonsense word.

• Use the interactive tab to hide directions, answers, or challenge questions.

Extend learning by having students use widgets to manage their own learning.

• Students use the timer widget to track different tasks to complete at the board.

• Students use the spinner or dice widgets to provide a variety of different tasks for other students to complete aligned to the class’s objective.

Instructional ideas

• Engage your class by using different pens to draw attention to different aspects of your lesson.

  • Use the Shape pen to draw a quick Venn Diagram.

  • Use the Magic pen to draw a circle over part of a map to spotlight that place, or draw a rectangle over a factor detail in an article to zoom in and focus attention.

• Enhance your lessons by having the students use different pens in small groups or stations.

  • Add or open a blank SMART Notebook page. Students can use the Creative pen to write their high frequency or vocabulary words in rainbow ink.

  • Use the Text pen to help students practice editing and revising. Write sentences with the text pen and have a student come to the display to edit the sentences.

• Extend learning by having students identify effective uses of the pens to communicate their ideas.

  • Have students partner up and use the Magic pen. One student writes a vocabulary word using the Magic pen and their partner then writes the word or definition using the regular pen. Students can take turns.

  • Encourage students to use the artistic style pens (Creative, Magic, or a custom pen style) for mind mapping, illustration, and creative responses.

Instructional ideas

• Engage your students by providing background information on one page as a reference for completing the activity shown on the other page. You can also duplicate two of the same pages to give two groups of students their own space to respond.

  • Show a writing piece on one side and comprehension and analysis questions on the other page.

  • Add an image from history or a piece of art on one page and a graphic organizer for capturing connections and new ideas on the other.

• Enhance your lessons by having student directions on one page and using the other page as a space for completing the task and recording their work.

  • Have multiple dice on one page and a recording sheet on the other. Have the student roll the dice to create math problems and record their answers on the other page.

  • Customize dice with letters and have students roll three dice to try to create CVC words. Students can record any real words they rolled.

• Extend learning by showing two pieces students analyze to find parallels and contrasting ideas.

  • Compare and contrast two poems or nursery rhymes.

  • Compare two news articles from different time periods.

  • Compare two essential characters of significant people in history.

Instructional ideas

• Engage your students by adding the Screen Shade to directions or a writing piece to keep students focused on the topic you’re covering.

  • Use the Screen Shade to help young students track reading lines in simple text.

  • Use the Screen Shade to reveal agenda items or key concepts one at a time.

• Enhance your lessons by using the Screen Shade to slowly reveal an image or writing piece to allow students to predict and connect what they know with only a given set of information.

  • Add a picture from history aligned to your topic or a real-life example of the concept at work.

  • Slowly reveal a completed math problem from the bottom up and have students try to figure out the rules for the numbers in the equation at the top.

• Extend learning by using the Screen Shade to slowly reveal questions or learning tasks, getting more in-depth with every question.

  • Have a question or task aligned to each level of Bloom’s taxonomy or depth of knowledge.

  • Create a question or task aligned to each component of depth and complexity thinking tools.

Instructional ideas

• Engage students with game elements to add fun and interactivity to any lesson.

  • On the display, use the buzzer and call out problems that connect to the game. Students press the buzzer if they know the answer.

  • Increase participation by using the Magic Hat to call on students by name or using numbers.

• Enhance lessons with game elements that challenge students to increase success with interactive content in small groups or stations.

  • Add the timer to have students increase their speed of recall and completion of activities.

  • Add the Magic Hat to turn games into a quiz-like format to increase students’ speed of recall.

• Extend learning by adding a customized list of higher-order thinking questions to the Magic Hat.

  • Add question stems from Bloom’s taxonomy.

  • Select tasks or products for students to complete or create in small groups.

Instructional ideas

Engage more students by sharing lessons within a grade level.

• Share a SMART Notebook file with your colleagues. They can click the link to download the file and modify it to meet the varied needs of their students. This allows you and other teachers to work smarter by sharing work.

• Share with teachers at another campus. Students can work on the same material and participate in a shared Shout It Out! or Monster Quiz. Break down the classroom walls!

• Create a lesson aligned to your Scope and Sequence and share it with a teacher at another school in your district.

Enhance your teaching by organizing lessons by standards. You can refer to the collection and adapt lessons as needed.

• Put links to shared SMART Notebook lessons directly into your lesson plan for easy access during class.

• Create lessons connected to regional standards and upload them to SMART Exchange, tagging your school district.

• Add lessons you’ve created or shared to a shared lesson plan, spreadsheet, or folder that colleagues can access.

Extend beyond your classroom. Share the link to your SMART Notebook lesson on social media. Align it with high-impact teaching practices and relevant educational conversations.

• Create a resource or lesson aligned to an educational topic you’re passionate about and share it on social media using #SMARTchampion.

• Based on professional reading that you have done, build a tool or lesson in SMART Notebook and share it on social media using #SMARTchampion.

• Share with teachers at another campus. Students can work on the same material and participate in a shared Shout It Out! or Monster Quiz. Break down the classroom walls!

Instructional ideas

Engage students by sharing review material, notes, and SMART activities students can refer to at their own pace.

• Sharing a file adds it to your lesson library in Lumio. From there, send the file to students to review in class or at home.

• Create and share activities students can use to practice and review after class.

• Share a file that includes review information students can refer to for homework or before a test.

Enhance your lesson and make it self-paced and differentiated by adding activities and handouts students can reference and work through outside of class.

• Access the shared lesson in Lumio’s lesson library. You can use the Lumio’s tools to add handouts and activities for your students to complete.

  • Use SMART Notebook’s Infinite Cloner to add manipulatives to your lesson so students can practice skills at home (especially good for tactile students).

  • Add choice boards in Flip-Out and Label Reveal so students can respond to reading or reflect on what they’ve learned.

Extend learning by sharing student-centered projects that have practical applications in a flipped classroom setting so students can work on their own or collaboratively.

• Make digital notes available outside of class.

• After sharing to Lumio, add a blank collaborative Workspace to the lesson for students to complete as a homework help desk, where students help each other with questions about assignments.