Geometry (and math in general) is full of theorems, diagrams, formulas, calculations and so many more topic specific things to remember that students often suffer from brain overload. Throughout my years of teaching math at the secondary level I have seen this happen on multiple occasions and when it happens, well the results are just not pretty. The students begin to get frustrated trying to keep things straight, they act out or
worse, they give up and shut down. I am a big proponent of graphic organizers (coming soon in a future blog post!) but depending on the topic they can sometimes get lengthier than I would really like them to become.
The need for something to help students really came to a head when we started talking about right triangle and trigonometry, specially the special right triangles formulas! To overcome both the student shutting down and the length issues, I started thinking about how I remember things. I mean, even though I'm a math teacher, I can't keep everything in my head at all times! :) I realized that I often create "cheat sheets" for a lack of a better thing to call them. These sheets usually consist of formulas, sketches and possibly shortcuts depending on what I'm trying to remember. When I sat down to transfer my cheat sheets to something more students friendly, I ended up with something that was a cross between a graphic organizer and a formula list.
Each one ended up containing diagrams as well as the formulas that corresponded! I decided that I didn't want to just give them everything thought. I am a strong believer in the fact that when a student writes things down on their, they remember the information better. As a result, I ended up creating two versions.
The first version has everything filled in as an answer key and as an accommodation for students with IEP's/504s. This version also works great to leave at a station for an aide during a station review.
Additionally, I have sent them home to parents to give them an overview of the unit that we are studying as well as putting them in my own unit plans.
The second version has blanks for students to fill in of the important information.
I found that this works perfect for many things. If they are printed two to a sheet, students can put them in an interactive notebook. I have also used them as a review for a quiz or test and as a catch-up tool for absent students.
So far I have created six:
Circles,
Transformations,
Area,
Surface Area and Volume,
Quadrilaterals and
Right Triangles/Trigonometry. This last one is my newest freebie in my TeachersPayTeachers store! Please
check it out and let me know what you think. I have also bundle all six of my Quick Reference Sheets in a money-saving bundle! I have more planned to cover other units of Geometry and eventually I might branch out and make some for algebra!
I was just thinking about the exact same thing because my students need some type of study aid.I have had success with them in the past as well.
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