Free Discriminant Cheat Sheet for your Quadratic Formula Unit

In this post, I want to share a few resources for teaching the discriminant as part of a Quadratic Formula unit. 

This simple discriminant cheat sheet helps students make the connection between the value of the Quadratic Formula's discriminant and the number of real solutions the equation will have. It also shows examples of graphs with 1, 2, and 0 zeros and what the discriminant will look like in each case.

The discriminant's negative signs can get to feeling a bit overwhelming for some students, so I always have then count the number of negatives to figure out if they'll be adding or subtracting under the radical sign.

(-) = - subtracting

(-)(-) = + adding

(-)(-)(-) = - subtracting

This helps students reduce the number of sign errors when evaluating the Quadratic Formula. We so also discuss b^2 and how it will always be positive, so not to count its negative sign.

I recently updated this discriminant sorting activity that helps students recognize if a quadratic will have 0, 1 or 2 real solutions. Students can cut and paste the different slips into their correct columns on the answer sheet. There's a smaller answer sheet included if you'd like students to just write each letter and not cut/paste. 

A no-prep drag and drop Google Slides version of the discriminant sorting activity is also included.

For students learning about complex solutions to the Quadratic Formula, I just finished a self-checking Quadratic Formula digital math escape room activity.

The escape room also comes printable, which is probably the version we'll be using in class. The printable versions of the digital math escape rooms are easy to grade. Students write their 4-letter codes on their answer sheet.

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