-> Do you check student notebooks?  How so - on a daily basis, weekly,
-> marking quarter?
I check them at the quarter for certain courses, not for all the courses
I teach. For instance, in AP Calculus, which is supposed to be a
university/college level class, I do not check notebooks. These kids
should already know how to take notes. However, I have re-instituted
something this year in my AP Calculus and AP Comp Sci courses which I
had done several years back, and that is this: In order to encourage
them to keep a notebook in spite of the fact that I do not check or
grade it, I give pop-quizzes on which open notes, but no textbook, are
allowed. I imagine this would encourage the student to organize the
notebook in the way that would be most useful to him/her. Also, if
students in either of my AP courses come for help, I will usually ask
them to flip to the pertinent section in their notes. If they have no
notes, I will not help them. I tell them to go get the notes first, read
them, read the book, and then come back to me for help.
In my Honors Geometry course, which is about 1/3 freshman and 2/3
sophomores, I do check notebooks, at least at the beginning of the year.
I will be checking them soon (in about two weeks) for the first quarter.
Then I will be checking them again near the end of the first semester
(some time in January). Whether I will continue to check them after that
point remains to be seen. Last year I let it go after the first semester
(I, too, hate checking the durn things. However, I see no point in
complaining that kids don't know how to take notes if I don't in some
way hold them accountable for it and teach it). I do think that some
students devote a great deal of effort to keeping a notebook, and in a
way it is a type of class participation, and such students appreciate
being rewarded with a good grade for that effort, especially if they
don't do as well on quizzes and tests. My notebook grade is worth a
single quiz, so it's not much. I do find that the grading process is
much swifter since I adopted a practice a several years back of using a
grading rubrik. One of our English teachers showed me how she used a
rubrik to grade essays, and got very little back-talk from her students
regarding their grade, so I adapted the idea to notebooks, and it works
well. I can grade a class set of about 30 notebooks in about 1 hour. Ok,
maybe 1.5 hours...
For my Intermediate Algebra class, however, (remedial second year
algebra) I graded their notebooks last year EVERY quarter. I knew that
if they ever got wind of the fact that I might not grade them, that note
taking in class would cease.
When I give notes and examples in class, I expect every student to take
the examples and definitions down, and I pause to allow time for this. I
find that roaming the aisles while they take the example down helps me
to be more patient and wait, lets me see how much longer they need to
copy the examples down, and encourages even the kids who sit in the back
to take down the notes, since I am walking right past them, instead of
thinking they can hide in the back and do whatever they want.
-> I must be honest - I do so hate grading notebooks that I gave it up
-> 20-years ago. 
I hate it too. There probably are years in my 13 year history when I
didn't grade a one. I went back to it, though, because of the afore
mentioned reasons. Also, it helps keep students on task during class if
they are required to be taking notes. So it helps out in a lot of ways.
Sheila King
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