Creating classroom displays is an essential part of prepping for a new school year or academic lesson. The start of a new chapter is the perfect opportunity not only to revamp how the room looks but it’s an excellent opportunity to get creative and enhance the atmosphere for learning. Maintaining a classroom that’s appealing works to help students feel valued, welcome, and excited to learn. So, today we’ll discuss the advantages of classroom displays and everything you should know about creating them.
What Makes A Good Classroom Display?
Outstanding classroom displays have two things in common: they engage and inform. Yet, they also work to brighten up the classroom atmosphere. The truth is that drab, plain classrooms are uninviting and can take away from a student’s concentration. At the same time, too many classroom displays can distract students and be harmful to learning. So, how do you maintain a good balance? It’s simple – follow these tips:
Make it Informative
Your classroom display board should display important information and be laid out in a way that’s easy to comprehend. Hence, don’t go overboard with text, as too much can be tedious to read. The best method for creating an effective classroom display is to utilize diagrams and keywords to help keep it concise.
Make it Engaging
Develop ways to make the students want to engage with the display. For example, some teachers find it fun to begin the display but then have the students add to it on an ongoing basis. This method helps the students better retain the information learned and makes them want to be part of the collaboration process.
Create Unique Themes or Designs
Perhaps it’s tempting to use the same format that you included on last year’s classroom board, but the styling and layout are just as important as the information you’re displaying. Children tend to be visual learners, so this means they are highly receptive to color and images that they are to lots of text. Try to come up with ways to incorporate 3D models and other unique elements into your design.
Make Sure the Classroom Display is in the Right Location
Another crucial component is where you display your classroom board. And keep in mind that they don’t have to be limited to just walls, as doors, windows, cabinet doors, and tables also make great places to create outstanding classroom displays.
The Different Types of Classroom Displays
Before you get started building the classroom board, decide which type of display board you’ll use. The most common types of classroom bulletin boards:
- Conceptual bulletin boards
- Decorative bulletin boards
- Interactive bulletin boards
- Child created bulletin boards
Understanding the best type for your design is an essential step to ensure your information is laid out properly, and students can take away what you want them to know.
Advantages of Classroom Display Boards in Schools
As we discussed, classroom display boards effectively engage, excite, and promote teamwork, thus helping maximize personal and learning skills. Moreover, display boards are the perfect tool for children who prefer visual learning because it helps visualize the words they’re hearing. Perhaps the most significant advantage of classroom display boards in schools is that students may start taking more pride in their work, given the incentive for it to be displayed to their peers.
While display boards have been shown to make some children feel as if they are inadequate compared to their peers, others get distracted by display boards. However, overall, they are a wonderful addition to all classrooms. Not only do display boards help promote creativity and develop skills, but it also helps encourage interactive lessons and visual learning.
How Do Visuals Help Learning?
There are many ways in which visuals help learning. Let’s take a look at the top 4:
- Helps readers retain information longer: Images have been found to be the most effective tool at helping information become a permanent memory.
- Communication is simpler and quicker: Formatting text into bullet points, images, and videos is the easiest way to help your reader process the info faster.
- Aids with comprehension: It’s been found that visuals work to better help learners understand concepts better as they stimulate the imagination and affect cognitive capabilities.
- Drives motivation: Many students struggle with certain subjects because they find the information to be uninteresting. Using engaging images, captivating videos, and fascinating infographics is a great way to capture their attention and motivate them to pay attention.
Classroom Display Ideas- Inspiration for Design
If you’re at a loss for ideas or feel as if you’ve already created every possible classroom display board – look for inspiration! And believe us, there’s plenty of it on the internet found on sites such as Pinterest, Facebook, and more. We could spend days coming up with inspirational ideas for creating classroom boards, but who has time for that? Instead, we’ve narrowed down a list that contains a few of our favorite classroom display ideas:
- Take advantage of your local landscape and use the outdoors to create a classroom board indoors.
- Show off your classroom’s core values.
- Host your very own art show.
- Create a motivational wall.
- Maintain an “All About Me” wall that showcases your students – just don’t forget to update it occasionally!
Infographics As Classroom Projects
As an educator, you may not realize that you’re probably already using visual aids in your classroom. Have you ever noticed how students tend to respond better to visuals than they do text alone? An excellent way to incorporate more visuals into your lessons is by using infographics! They are highly effective in the classroom setting because they increase retention and comprehension of the information.
The best part is that infographics can be used for any subject! Feel free to create infographics for math, science, social studies, health, English, history, and so on. Just be sure to utilize keywords and phrases to keep text at a minimum and combine that with relevant visuals or other interactive elements.
The Bottom Line
In the end, the most important thing to remember about classroom displays is that they should add to the learning environment, not take away from it. So, keep displays at a minimum and be sure the ones you do use are relevant, focused, and inclusive of all students!
Original infographic via inflows.co.uk in 2018, content updated January 2022.
