Revising for Maths

[Cramlington567]

This week my son has RE assesment. He has not been very good at revising in an effective way so I tried to show him brainstorming/mind mapping just having the trigger words and key points on each point etc. This is how I learnt to do it when I was younger. It worked he got it and could elaborate on each point in his own words and adapt his answers to suit the question .

Now, Maths is a bit tricky for me to help him with because I was never any good at maths and he is better than me. I can see this mind mapping technique is not really a fit for non wordy assesments like maths. I like the idea of having one sheet if A4 a night or two before the assesment so you can just really have the main points that will jog your memory to recall more and then just review this in the final day or two. How do you do this with Maths?

Seems like my son just goes through page after page of questions. Trouble is he doesn't seem to do well in his maths assesments but understands the lesson and contributes well. I suspect he is not very adaptable to a question which is slightly different to what he prepared so trying to get him to build flexibility and be adaptable to different questions.

Sorry for the length.

He is year 9 btw. Top set for maths but done badly in last two assesments to teachers surprise.

Just keep practising questions. Make sure he is getting them correct himself, and not using the answers until he has finished a set.

Corbett maths and Dr Frost maths are good websites for videos and questions.

Three approaches that might help:

1. Continue with practice questions. This is the generally recognised way to improve with maths.
2. Go through previous assessments and see where he lost marks. Was it miss reading the question, not understanding the maths, basic mistakes etc. This might help hi see patterns in what is going wrong and therefore what to focus on for revision or watch out for in exams.

Additionally, if you all like mind maps
3) Make a mind map poster per topic (there are 5-7 overarching areas: Number, Algebra, Data, Shapes etc) and include on it any facts / formulae and maybe links. (e.g. A right angled triangle in a question shouts pythagoras or trig, but also an isosceles triangle can be cut in half to make two congruent right angled triangles)

Head of Maths here!

We would strongly encourage our students away from mind maps/taking notes/summary pages etc. - they are less effective for Maths.

I would recommend Corbett Maths (just Google it - no log in details etc. required) - students should be watching videos, completing practice questions and then marking their own answers.

The importance of the last step cannot be overstated - if students aren't marking, the practice questions are broadly pointless (as they might be practising the wrong thing!).

maths teacher here too, I agree, notes, mind maps etc completely inappropriate

( in fact these techniques are inappropriate for many subjects, as you are just rote learning, and that gets you nowhere beyond a basic pass at best- you need to understand and apply the knowledge, not just rote learn it) -

lots of exam questions, do a question, mark your own answer, work out where you went wrong, if anywhere, do the next question

The only reason I said a mind map is that just before exams or whatever it is useful to have things to look at briefly to remind / test on formulae.
Without some kind of quick reference it is easy to forget a topic (or that's what I find helping DD anyway).

Just a comment on the comments above.

My DD still needs practice with the rote learning stuff as well as practice questions . It is all very well being able to apply stuff but if you don't know your SOHCAHTOA or that there are 60 seconds in a minute (yes really that is currently a revision item for her for 19th May) or there are 100cm in a metre, or the difference between then you aren't going to get very far....

well, yes, you need to know the basics, but you cant get beyond a basic pass, with them, so learn them, ( eg by making revision cards to test yourself) then practice questions with those facts straight away, so you are applying them. Depends on the subject, but you are unlikely to get beyond a 4 by rote learning

@Nimbostratus100 I think we are in agreement, (just maybe you don't appreciate how difficult it is for my DD to actually do the rote learning bit!)

Though given the OP's son is top set he almost certainly doesn't have the difficulties my DD has.

yes, I think we are, it sounds like your lass is maybe aiming a little, lower, so the rote learning is a higher proportion of the grade she will get. I hope she does well xx

She 18. This is her first full attempt having been ill in y11, and not well enough last year either. She absolutely can do the maths, but whether she can focus / have stamina for 3 full exams is another matter.

yes I agree that a revision page/brief notes can be useful for lower grade students to look at just before they go into the exam.

I tell them to put things like 'product of prime factors' - means do a factor tree. Solve - means you will end up with x = something. If a factorise question has an x-squared, x and number, it's a two bracket one. Here are a few square and cube numbers that are common. etc.

The children know how to do these things (ish) once they remember what topic they are on, and are reminded of a few things about the topic first. They have usually gone through piles of practice papers, but aren't going to look through them all again before the exam - they need something quick. The papers are good for learning some of the material and helping understand it, but for a number of Foundation level pupils, they aren't really understanding it all that well anyway. They just have to learn to do some things to get the marks. I wish it weren't like this - there are many topics that I think are somewhat pointless teaching foundation level students when they have no context about why they're doing them and it does seem like you are just teaching them to pass an exam - but given the way the exam is, and the fact that they have to pass, sometimes you do just have to know certain things. Or at lower levels still, there are things that I agree that they should be able to do for the foundation level, like basic fractions/decimals/percents - but they don't understand yet. And there is so much else to cover, that they don't get the time needed to stay at that level until they do. So sometimes they just have to learn methods to the answer, and sometimes it does eventually start to make sense over time.

For pupils at a higher level, then yes more practice papers that they are actually understanding and remembering is good, and they don't need to go back to the questions to review in the same way, as it's made a difference already to their understanding. They might just need a list of strategies or common mistakes or things that they frequently do wrong (a note to remember that if you're subtracting something in a bracket, pay careful attention to the signs, or whatever).

Seems like my son just goes through page after page of questions.

The way to get better at maths is certainly to do maths, however doing maths doesn't mean you'll get better at it.

As a pp said, he needs to be doing questions, and marking his answers. So many kids do the questions then don't mark their work, which makes the whole thing a pointless waste of time.

What's also important after marking their answers is what they do about it. If they do a bunch of questions, mark them, get 50% right then move on, that's no use.

Best would be to do a question, then mark it. If correct, keep going, if incorrect, try to figure out why. This might be a silly mistake, easily rectified, in which case a few more questions would increase confidence that this is fixed. If it's an inability to answer the question, then help is needed. This might be watching a video - as mentioned above corbettmaths has free videos on all topics. I prefer https://www.mathsgenie.co.uk/gcse.html as it has its videos listed by approximate grade so easier to find the right level of work - or looking through worked solutions or a revision guide (CGP are good).

Another maths teacher here; I agree it’s questions all the way. Maths Genie is great with revision and questions by topic.
one thing I find helps is for a topic like circle theorems I get my tutees ( retired now) to make a poster on a piece of A3. Drawing it all out and writing the reasons is great and they can
then put it on the wall in their room/study space.