Problem Trees: A Graphic Organizer

This is the 3rd post in a series of 5 on review activities that also teach test-taking skills.



Review Activities to Make Real Students
Predicting Exam Questions
Expert Study Teams


When I arrived at UC Davis as a youngster, I was under the impression that I had study skills. I can tell you now that I did not. I knew how to take notes, but studying effectively was something I had to learn. One of the best study sessions I ever participated in took place the night before my Calculus II exam. A friend and I simply taught ourselves how to identify which method of integration to use based on what we saw in the problem.

My third review idea sort of comes from this. I think that many geometry students struggle on tests because they cannot figure out what in the long list of definitions, postulates, and theorems is needed to do each problem. Of course, I haven't tested this yet, but here's the idea.

Give each group a set of cards with each card containing a vocabulary term, a theorem name, a postulate name, or a problem. The goal is for the students to arrange the cards so that the vocab, theorem, and postulate cards "point to" the problems that use them. I would leave it up to the students to determine what is meant by "point to". When finished, the students could create a graphic organizer to display the information.

I might actually have to do this activity myself before presenting it to the students. This way I could predict potential trouble spots. I think my students might surprise me though. They have a tendency to be very creative when under the gun. The ultimate goal though? A deeper understanding of how the geometry machine works via a big picture view of the way the pieces fit together.