In a post on Cognitive Science in the Classroom, I mentioned Knowledge Organisers, or to be more precise I mentioned Kris Boulton’s  “When shouldn’t I use knowledge organisers?”. Kris has written on why they are less applicable to maths. Certainly, I had not used knowledge organisers for Mathematics myself with one exception, I have used  William Emeny’s Angle Facts; as Kris Boulton says in his article, “Maths is super-dense with concepts, and processes, but really only very few facts.” Noting topics where students do need to know more facts, he includes angle facts.

When I have used Will’s angle facts, I have adapted it so some content is missing, particularly the section on basic angle facts, students can be given just the diagrams for example and asked to recall the basic angle facts. I have also asked students to recall as many basic angle facts before they see the list as in the organiser, so using it following retrieval practice or as a retrieval exercise.

As noted in this post on Knowledge Organisers from Durrington Research School, it is not about the knowledge organisers themselves but how they are used for planning, teaching and testing. Note the example shared of a Maths Knowledge Organiser, Year 10 Expressions, Foundation. I like the fact that key vocabulary is included here, the few key facts needed and of course by far the largest section – key concepts with examples.

To quote the Durrington blog, “Maths are using their range of knowledge organisers to support homework tasks. Firstly, the students can access their maths knowledge organisers are any time using our online system Connect. This means that students have scaffolding in place for when they are working outside of the classroom. Furthermore, every fortnight the maths team set a homework that is based on retrieval quizzing. The students are required to use the knowledge organisers to find the answers to upcoming quizzes and then actually sit the quiz in class on the due date for the homework. Students who score less than 12 out of 15 are then supported in making flashcards on the questions, again gaining the information from the knowledge organiser, and use these to retest until they are successful. This strategy demonstrates how knowledge organisers can be used to support learning through the testing effect.

Nicola Whiston has a superb collection of Knowledge Organisers which follow the White Rose Schemes of Learning, all are available on TES Resources, on TES editable versions are available as well as the free pdf resources. These are really attractive and I believe appeal to students. I think these are excellent to use in class alongside teaching a topic. They could also be used for retrieval practice.

You can hear Nicola talking about Knowledge Organisers with Tom Manners, In his interview, he was joined by Nathan Burns aka @MrMetacognition who has researched these in great detail, as well as Nicola Whiston (@Whisto_Maths) to discuss what maths knowledge organisers should contain and how we should use them effectively.

From Becky Reed a set of Knowledge Organisers for Edexcel GCSE (UK age 14-16). We have here another set of very clear and also attractive set of resources. Like the other resources here I think these are useful in class and for students to use at home also. There are several  examples given which is really helpful.

Sarah Hall has a GCSE (‘WJEC flavoured’ )collection. Sarah’s Knowledge Organiser resources can all be found (all free) on TES Resources. These have many clear illustrations and like others in the Knowledge Organiser collection, are very attractively presented.

For a collection of Cornell notes linked to topics found in the Maths curriculum see Mr Hawes Maths.

For A complete set of A Level Statistics and Mechanics Knowledge Organisers – see these resources from Lucyjc.  These resources are available free on TES Resources: Statistics and Mechanics. All include Key Words and Definitions and What Do I Need to Know sections.

And for Pure Mathematics, we have from @misschakera a set for the first year of A Level.

Mrs D Maths has been writing Knowledge Organisers for A Level Maths, ( free on TES Resources). She has also started a Year 2 set of organisers, see Year 2 Functions and Graphs.

These organisers are included in the Knowledge Organisers collection which includes resources for KS3, KS4 and KS5 (ages 11 – 18).

If I want definitions, characteristics and examples (clarified with the use of non examples), then I could return to the Frayer model. (See Frayer Models.)

Searching for Mathematics Knowledge Organisers, I have come across some resources I wish to explore further, such as the Henry Box School on Knowledge Organisers where the school are sharing Knowledge Organisers for each subject, recognising the support parents can offer. From the Subjects menu, choose a subject and you will find this includes Knowledge organisers for Year 7 through to Year 11, see Maths for example.

CIMT’s GCSE course includes Facts to Remember for each unit.