After Writing Let’s Practice Geometry, I have since been using them in my own classroom, and have been getting feedback about how other teachers and parents have been using them to help their students. Here are few of the best Ideas.
Make the Solutions Available to Students
The Number One way to help students get the hang of Geometry problems is to allow them to correct their own work by comparing it with step by step solutions. There are several ways to do this, The most direct is to have a copy of the solutions completely worked out (or several copies if you are a classroom teacher) available for students to check as they work the problems. I recommend having them available somewhere away from where students are working so they have to get up to check. The next method is to display the answers on an overhead or video projector after they have finished the problems, such as the next day. Give them time to see their mistakes and successes and correct their own papers. This of course requires the full version PDF available on our website.
I actually stumbled on this one by complete accident. I was teaching a summer school course which was scheduled in a 4 hour block (ouch!). Anyway, i decided to make copies of several topics at once to save me some time running into the copy room and staple them into packets. My plan was to do a brief lecture on a single topic, let students do those problems, then lecture on the next topic, have the students do the next set and so-forth. To my own amazement after the first lecture about 3/4 of the class was about 3 topics ahead of me and doing the problems correctly, and going to my book that was on my desk to check their work all without me telling them to do so! They learned the concepts just from the little explanations in each section. I don’t want to sound like I’m tooting my own horn because i wrote those things as a reminder or a refresher not as a stand alone teaching tool but to my amazement that is what they were. Needless to say I stopped trying to lecture and made a lot more packets! The quiz and test data wasn’t perfect but was better than If I had stood up and talked for an hour. My voice felt less tired too. To this day every so often I run into a student who was in that class and they ask me if they could do some more packets… wow!
Follow the Examples Exactly
A lot of times I see students wanting to take shortcuts, not follow all of the directions on assignments and try to rush through to finish so they can socialize or just be done. With these worksheets everything is important. With most of the problems students are asked to write out the theorem, postulate, relationship, or what have you, as well as solve the problem to get an answer. It is critical that they don’t skip this step because about half of being successful in geometry is mastering the geometry and memorizing the different postulates, and theorems and how they work. If students write them out every time they use them they create an association in their brains that helps them remember. Also students don’t like to look things up so they have an incentive to memorize them versus look them up in their notes, textbook, or explanations that come with each section. Also students should show every step of their work not only because that is a basic thing that we want all students to be able to do but to help them understand the idea of proofs later on.
Coach Students on How to fill out the Easy Grade Key at the bottom
Not only does that help you grade them much faster, but if students use the key it can help them figure out if they have the correct answer. If their answer isn’t their, they made a mistake.