11 years ago, I walked into my lab for the first time. Ask yourself this question, when starting your first proper teaching job, what sort of room would you like to be teaching in? Dark, a little damp with walls covered in shelves that had very little on apart from dust was not what I had in mind! I believe that it was at that point that my passion for making classrooms places that promote progress and help enthuse students was born. As I’ve progressed though my career I’ve come to the realisation that students perform better when there in an environment that stimulates them.
The holy grail of teaching is to
stimulate students in a way that enables them to make progress without
realising that they are making progress.
As you may have guessed by now, I think that your classroom environment
plays a key role in this and that within this your displays are vitally
important. So, with this in mind how do
you approach designing and putting up a display? As a Science teacher who mainly teaches KS4
& 5 my approach may differ from how it may be thought about further down I
the school system, but I think the basic principles should still apply.
- Start with an exam question or concept that you want to build your display around. I usually start off with a long 6-mark exam question and ensure that there is enough information in the display for students to answer it and gain all 6 marks.
- Plan your display out before starting to put it up. This is a lesson that I have been reminded of more than once as when I’ve tried putting up displays without properly planning it out, it’s ended up taking longer and they’ve been less effective in the long run. If you plan for students to use your displays (especially during revision) it helps them to have a pre-drawn diagram of the display. If you plan out your display like this you already have your diagram done. You can then spend some time annotating a photocopy of this diagram to work out what text you are going to include.
- When putting together content to put on your display type it up and save it. I can virtually guarantee that you’ll be able to use it later when putting together other resources.
- Make your display noticeable. This almost sounds like common sense, however, over the years I’ve seen many displays that have looked dull due to a lack of colour or have had too much writing on in too smaller font to be easily read from a distance. Make your display colourful and use a font size of over 40 as this will be easily read even when students are not next to your display.
Below I have included some of the
displays I have put together, and have tried to talk through some of my
methodology on how they were put together.
To anyone who is not a Science teacher I’m sorry that they’re all Science
based.
Rain Forest Display
This idea originally came out of a
cultural day based around South America where I taught a lesson on rain
forests. So, at the end of the day I had
an abundance of printed trees that I needed to do something with. I began thinking about topics that students
often struggle with and the two that came to mind were consequences of rain
forest destruction and the use of belt transects. The first step I took was to find two exam
questions to construct the display around.
Luckily, when looking on Exampro I came across a question for each. To enable belt transects to be taught using
this display I put drawing pins in at regular intervals at the top and bottom
of the display so that white string can be used to split the display up into
belts. I then stuck on a range of
different animals so that students can use the display to try and estimate how
many of each there is.
Electrolysis
A large part of the KS4 Chemistry
specification is based around electrolysis, so it only made sense to put a
display together on it. Over the years
there have been loads of 6 mark questions on electrolysis, so it wasn’t hard to
find a couple. There are a few key ideas
about electrolysis that are needed to answer every question on it so that’s
what I based the large central focus of the display on. Around this central focus I then put up
information about specific examples that come up in exams.
Making Oil Useful
In terms of making oil useful there
are three areas that students must understand.
These are; fractional distillation, cracking and polymerisation. This is a good example of a display that was
constructed to help students connect three key concepts together and make
connections between different ideas.
The production of insulin through genetic engineering
For whatever reason this is always
a concept that students seem to get confused about. The way that I always teach it is to get
students working through a diagram showing the process. The next logical step seemed to be to put
together a display based on the diagrams students have annotated to allow them
to answer an exam question on genetic engineering. This display is an example of where I’ve used
pictures and content from a pre-prepared power point to help construct it. The lesson to be learnt from this display is
not to re-invent the wheel. If something
already exists don’t be afraid to use it.
Leaf Adaptation
As a biologist, one concept that I
always enjoy teaching is how the structure of the leaf is adapted to carry out
photosynthesis. This is an example of a
display that is constructed using lots of smaller interconnected parts. When putting together a display like this
don’t be afraid to get students to help.
All the individual cells on this display were produced by students at
the end of the year. As with all the
other displays it is based around a 6 mark question on the structure of the
leaf, so all the information around it is geared to help students answer this
question.
The Haber Process
The last display that I want to discuss is one that focuses
on a high level concept, but also brings together lots of other key ideas. On the Chemistry GCSE paper a regular
question that comes up is on the haber process, so given that a diagram showing
it is striking, why not turn it into a display?
The main aim of this display it to enable students to logically describe
the process, but as the rate of reaction is changed throughout the process, it
can also be used to teach rate of reaction.
Once you’ve spent time putting your displays up the next
question to ask yourself is how can they be used to help increase student
progress. Below I have summarised some
of the things I use displays for throughout the year.
- During the course of normal lessons you can gather students around them to explain a particular concept.
- You can use them to help show students how to construct detailed diagrams that focus on content rather than just drawing pictures.
- Large displays can be used by students during peer teaching activities where they explain the concept to other students.
- During revision students can work through the displays using the information on them to answer the 6 mark questions that they are based around.
- If displays link together lots of different topics they can be used to teach students how to construct concept maps.
I hope that this has given you some inspiration about things
you can put into place in your own school.
The main thing is to have fun with your displays and remember that the
sky's the limit when being innovative and imaginative.
If you have enjoyed reading this you can find me on Facebook
@teachlikeahero and on Twitter at @teacherchalky1
Thanks for reading
David Chalk
