Are Your Bulletin Boards Working for You?
Most modern-day classes come equipped with awesome technology and state of the art interactive Smartboards. If your room comes with all the high-tech equipment or if your room doesn’t come with any gadgets at all, you can create bulletin boards that engage and create interactivity with your students. You can make your class responsive by designing bulletin boards that attract students’ attention.
Bulletin boards can also increase participation in your classroom. They can help review important concepts like grammar and vocabulary. Here are a few ways your bulletin boards can inspire your students to learn.
Help with Grammar
Place grammar rules on your walls and have students take notes directly from the board. Create a worksheet that goes along with the bulletin board for students to use and practice while learning or reviewing the grammar rules.
Have students write down questions and place them on a post-it note on the board next to the grammar rule. Student questions will help you move instruction forward and clarify unanswered questions before moving to the next grammar concept.
Students can also use the grammar rules to write out examples and place them on the board. Students can do this in groups to reduce stress and clutter on your bulletin board. Making a cute worksheet to go with this activity can help your board look cleaner and more organized if you are a bit OCD like myself.
Working with NMS
One of the hardest parts of teaching ASL is getting students to use appropriate NMS. Have your bulletin boards help you reinforce the expressions by using images and phrases. You can do this by taking pictures of students making the expressions and placing them on the bulletin board or use premade images. Students can also make videos using shortened URLs. Students can watch the videos and provide feedback to each other.
I like this grammar concept found here to study WH questions. It is an entire interactive lesson with posters and worksheets for students to practice. Put them on the board and include a place to put student work. Have students correct each other’s work to add some positive pressure for students to do better on the assignment. You can also have students practice expressions using the WH question cube using the board and posters for support.
Learning Culture and History
Provide a way for students to get deeper into the culture and grammar in your lessons by connecting your culture theme to your walls. I do this with a poetry unit that requires students to learn about a famous Deaf poet. Place these images of the poets on the board and let students choose one to research and present on.
Traditional bulletin boards focus on seasonal themes and help decorate your classroom walls. You can move away from traditional bulletin boards by using QR codes or shortened URL links to make your board more interactive. Use the boards as a start to research projects by using images, QR codes and shortened URL links to get students started and keep them interested in what they are learning about. The key to designing this type of board is to make it so students need to interact with it to complete work. Make worksheets and activities that give students more practice and connect to your board.
Thinking Beyond High School
Use your bulletin boards to helps students prepare for college. This bulletin board set lists some major colleges that offer ASL, interpreting, deaf education and other pathways related to sign language. It already includes shortened links to information provided by College Board for students to research. The packet also includes one worksheet for students to use to gather information and present on the college. This interactive lesson can tie into your units such as the 50 states or future plans.
Teaching students about the Pathway to Proficiency can help them with their current and future language learning. Place the pathway on the wall and let students mark their place on the path. Where do they feel they are at in their language learning in the current unit or end of the term? The answer to that question can help you with planning and instruction.
Create your own board or use these premade proficiency bulletin board products: Chevron Border Levels (pictured above), Chevron Pencil Levels, Pathway Steps and Staying in Target Language (pictured above, the brown path not included).
Vocabulary
Make your bulletin board smarter by using it to keep an ongoing vocabulary list. Use handshapes to keep vocabulary organized for the unit. Choose a student to add words daily. Students can then refer to the board to study and review from during each unit.
You can also use the bulletin board to show common vocabulary errors students tend to make. Parameters often elude students when they are first learning how to communicate. Show common signing errors using words that share common parameters like BROWN/BEER, WHITE/LIKE, WOMAN/MOM.
We all know there is more to a sign than a handshape. Show students all that goes into communicating so they have a daily reminder.
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