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Bulletin Boards

General guidelines for creating bulletin boards:

• Begin by determining where the bulletin board will be placed and measuring the area.
• Determine what concept or idea to depict and decide on a theme.
• Gather the materials. Utilize texture, color, and shapes to add interest.
• Layout the bulletin board using the simplest way possible to explain the concept. Stand back and view it. Use “white space.” Make sure it doesn’t look “cluttered.” Less is more effective. If you need to simplify your original idea, do so now.
• Assemble the bulletin board and attached the materials with appropriate pins, string, glue, etc.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the bulletin board when it is viewed by the intended audience.

Levels of Interaction

Bulletin boards are teaching tools. They have multiple purposes and may be created for interaction with different school populations. Dungen indicates there are four levels of interaction:

1. Display only.

Used to help reinforce curriculum presented in class or to present information that viewers should be made aware of. Examples: examples of fractions found in everyday life; memorabilia of a time period being studied in social studies; headings of types of animal species with examples of each.

2. Teacher lead discussion:

Used by teacher to present examples of concepts as they are being taught. Examples: Flash cards of words or letters of a foreign language placed next to associated word pictures as words are repeated by class; a time line of an event that is marked on as the time period is taught; a map of the world where markers are places as the areas are studied in geography; an enlarged balance sheet that can be marked on during a lesson on creating accounts for a business.

3. Student interactive bulletin boards:

The content is decided by the students and created with guidelines from the teacher. Examples: Students connect flags or symbols with yarn to locations on a map; students lie on the floor and have an image of their body drawn, cut the image out, then draw pictures of organs of the body as they are studied and place the images on their body map; on a large, blank piece of paper, have student write appropriate sayings, jokes, etc. in the foreign language being studied.

4. Student made bulletin boards:

Students create a bulletin board to show or teach a concept to their class and teacher. Examples: Visual items being discussed in a lesson, lists and pictures of items being taught, a reconstruction of a castle for a time period being studied.

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