Using Posters in Content Courses

Introduction and Rationale for Using Posters

Together with group presentations, posters made or used by students to help explain a given research or content topic are among the most effective teaching tools available to those of us who teach classes in which content is a major component. A poster, by our definition, should include graphics and text in about equal proportions, and should be large, colorful and simple.

• they are fun to make and interesting to look at
• they are a user friendly way to ease students into using the study skills that will be neccessary if the are to make the most of a content-based course or unit.
• they reduce what can be a quite heavy linguistic burden and encourage students to find and (more importantly) learn how to use, maps, photos, cartoons, graphs etc, to illustrate their topic.
• students are forced by the limitation of size and space, to identify the key points that they must make
• they lend themselves to cooperative group work and suit students with a visual learning style
• they provide a comfortable environment for students to practice some of the skills needed in making a class presentation
• they involve the joint creation of a physical product, made by the students' own efforts-both intellectual and artisitic

Brief Summary of Guidelines for Making a Content Poster

1. Each student choose an appropriate poster or chart on the topic that they want to present.
2. The student writes any oral explanation that might be necessary to understand the poster.
3. Pictures and charts should easy to read from around two meters.