Poster Session (Peer Teaching)

OVERVIEW

This alternative presentation method is an excellent way to inform students quickly, capture their imaginations, and invite an exchange of ideas among them. This technique is also a novel and graphic way of enabling students to express their perceptions and feelings about the topic you are currently discussing in a non-threatening environment.

PROCEDURE

1.  Ask every student to select a topic related to the general class topic or unit being discussed or studied.

2.  Request that students prepare a visual display of their concept on a poster board or bulletin board. (You will determine the size.) The poster display should be self-explanatory; that is, observers would easily understand the idea without any further written or oral explanation. However, students may choose to prepare a one-page handout to accompany the poster offering more detail and to serve as further reference material.

3.  During the designated class session, ask students to post their visual presentations and freely circulate around the room viewing and discussing each other's posters.  A health class, for example, is studying stress. Topics that are assigned include the following:

  •  Causes of stress

  •  Symptoms of stress

  • Effects of stress on self and others

  •  Stress reducers

    One of the students illustrates the symptoms of stress by creating a poster display that shows the following pictures:

  • An overweight person on a scale

  • Someone drinking an alcoholic drink

  • Two people arguing

  • A person with a headache

Below each picture is a short paragraph explaining how and why a stressed person might be exhibiting the symptom portrayed.

4.  Fifteen minutes before the end of the class, convene the entire class and discuss what they found valuable about the activity.

VARIATIONS

1.  You may choose to form teams of two or three instead of making individual assignments, particularly if the topic is limited in scope.

2.  Follow up a poster session with a panel discussion, using some displays as panelists.

 

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