Posters Vs Posters

Tom Bennett late wrote an article inwards the TES inwards which he suggested that some tasks - similar making posters - aren't ever the most effective role of lesson time. Some people didn't read the article properly, interpreted the headline every bit a personal assail on their teaching, as well as a Twitterstorm ensued.

When asked my sentiment on poster lessons I said that they aren't my loving cup of tea, but I was picturing a specific type of lesson. There are posters, as well as thus at that spot are posters...

My Bad Poster Experience
In my NQT twelvemonth I had to instruct Year seven almost the Fibonacci sequence. There are many approaches I could get got taken here: a lecture, a rich task, an investigation, a video... Open Evening was approaching as well as I'd been told to lay some pupil move on my classroom wall, thus I decided to get got my students to an information technology Room to brand Fibonacci posters. Here's the brief I gave them (written past times my NQT self):

The Fibonacci sequence is a famous sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 35, ... Your line is to exercise a poster almost the Fibonacci sequence. You may submit this poster at the terminate of the lesson, or if y'all desire to complete it for homework y'all may mitt it inwards on Monday.

Your poster should hold upward eye-catching as well as tardily to read as well as comprise interesting facts almost the Fibonacci sequence. You should focus on 1 or to a greater extent than the next ideas:
1. Who was Fibonacci?
2. Fibonacci’s rabbits/family trees
3. The Golden Number/Golden Ratio/Golden Section
4. Fibonacci spirals
5. Fibonacci rectangles/geometry/architecture/Islamic art
6. Fibonacci inwards nature (flowers, plants, pino cones etc)
7. Fibonacci poetry
Important: Do non simply cutting as well as glue materials from the network without reading as well as fully agreement it. Try to lay things inwards your ain words. You must empathize everything y'all lay on your poster as well as hold upward cook to respond questions almost it.

I also provided a listing of useful links to steer them inwards the administration of decent websites.

Some students made their poster on the reckoner - they cutting as well as glue some measure data almost Fibonacci into Word as well as spent most of the lesson playing unopen to alongside fonts. I suspect that if I'd quizzed these students after on what their poster truly said, they'd hold upward clueless. Zero learning at that spot then.

Some students did the enquiry online as well as made their poster past times hand. These were lovely, but far to a greater extent than fourth dimension had been spent on bubble writing than truly learning almost Fibonacci.

I took a quick human face at the posters, realised that it hadn't been a peculiarly effective lesson, praised my students for their efforts as well as lay all of the posters on my classroom wall.

I was mortified on Open Evening when a visiting dad called me over to the display to betoken out all the mistakes. "Look," he said, "this text doesn't brand whatever sense" as well as "Four of these posters haven't fifty-fifty got the correct numbers inwards the Fibonacci sequence". He was right. The posters looked pretty but the content was terrible. I wasn't certain what to say. I hadn't expected anyone to truly read the posters! This man, understandably, had higher expectations of a overstep grammer school. There it was on my wall, for everyone to run into - show that my students knew really niggling almost Fibonacci.

That was the concluding fourth dimension I did that sort of poster lesson. I'm certain there'll hold upward lots of people who'll tell me that they've had much to a greater extent than success alongside similar tasks. That's great, I'm non telling anyone non to exercise this, I'm simply telling y'all almost my personal experience. After my 'create a Fibonacci poster' lesson most students knew really niggling - if anything - almost Fibonacci.

My Good Poster Experience
The resources of the Standards Unit as well as Mathematics Assessment Project are widely regarded to hold upward outstanding. Many of these resources involve making 'collaborative posters'. The aim of these activities is for students to move inwards pairs (or minor groups - but I'd ever acquire for pairs) to prepare their agreement of a concept. These are aught similar the sort of posters I described above. These activities are almost students truly doing maths, as well as the 'posters' are simply a identify to organise their thinking.

I used the Sorting Equations of Circles 1 lesson from Mathematics Assessment Project alongside my Year 12s simply earlier Easter as well as it worked really well. After I'd taught them the full general shape of the equation of a circle, I asked them to move inwards pairs to allocate equations to the categories on the grid (which was printed on A3 paper). The solutions are shown below.

I don't ofttimes exercise dyad move at Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 degree but inwards this lesson I heard fantabulous discussions inwards which students were truly developing their agreement of the topic. Afterwards I collected the posters in, photocopied them onto A4 newspaper as well as handed a reduced re-create to each pupil to lay inwards their folder.

Another event is this bright activeness Identifying Similar Triangles, 1 time to a greater extent than from MAP. This was done past times my Year 10s at my previous school. They had to sort 8 pairs of triangles into 'similar', 'not similar' or 'can't tell', drawing on their cognition of angle facts. They worked inwards pairs - it's quite challenging thus it took most of the lesson.

If you've non tried the activities from the Standards Unit as well as Mathematics Assessment Project, they're definitely worth a go, whatever your 'style' of teaching.

I'm pretty certain that when Tom Bennett wrote his directly infamous poster piece, he was thinking almost the sometime type of poster lesson - the 1 where no-one learnt anything - as well as non the latter.