Student Posters

Student work from the English learner:

The poster of a group with an English

learner was very well designed and
contained all details asked for in the rubric.
The student presented his part, which was
the duration of the time period, in a for him
well managed way, speaking clear in full
sentences. His part was the shortest one, and
gave him a chance to perform well within
the group presentation. The graphic
organizer he presented, was filled out
completely and with revealed content
knowledge, but many basic language words
were spelled incorrectly. The organizer had
to be filled out during the walk, while
listening to other students speak. This is
very challenging for a second language
learner. The students difficulties with
writing become apparent somewhat.
Impressive was the amout of writing f short,
concise details on this poster. It received 20 of 20 points. Overall, the English learner performed
well in this combined assessment, and had a great learning experience in many areas of language
learning (listening, reading, speaking, writing).
Student work from the student with an IEP:

The poster that this student helped create, met most criteria. Labeling for the shown pictures was
done in small letters and hard to see for the audience, but the pictures of animals and the living
environment at the time were well chosen and give an immediate impression of life at this time.
The continents are depicted as well, and the years jotted down in the corner. There was no
mention of the major changes in that time period on the poster, which are crucial for the
Cretaceous (it is ended by an asteroid slamming into earth and resulting in extinction of
dinosaurs). Her presentation was adequate and fit in well with the group presentation. The
graphic organizer was filled out nearly complete and contained most of the important
information. Group and creative work helped this student to co-create a nice poster, yet lacking
in some of the required content. It received 17 / 20 points.

!
Student work from the high achieving student :

He presented the bulk of his poster, with details about animals in his assigned period. The poster
depicts all of the criteria mentioned in the rubric, is well done with attention to detail, and also
contains wonderful artistic elements (those are not his though). The poster is well balanced, with
graphics and writing where most appropriate respectively. It depicts the main representative
animals, shows a graphic about life moving to land, The students organizer is filled out sloppily,
but with the right facts, all over correct spelling, and with the year unit (mya), which hardly any
student filled in. His work shows that a very bright student may be bored with filling in
worksheets (sloppy work appearance), but can produce excellent work when being able to be self
directed and creative (poster research and presentation).
Student work from average achieving student:

The student presented a well done poster. There was little writing in the poster, the pictures were
not labeled but well chosen. The representative animals of the Triassic period were dinosaurs, but
there were also the first small mammals present. The pictures reveal this well and give a good
impression of the life conditions. The major changes of this period are not mentioned, the year
span is missing as well (although it is indirectly depicted in a timeline on the bottom left). Both
items were mentioned in the oral talk, so partial credit was given for these details. All over, this
poster earned16 of 20 points. The organizer shows some spelling errors and lacks the time unit,
but overall good work, everything is filled in and over all correct.

!
Student work from underachieving student:

This poster contained a lot of visual information about the animals living at the time, but they
are not labeled. There is also no presentation on the continents. The overall design of the poster
is clever and creative, and there is a lot of written information which includes the continents and
all other required components (years, major changes). The group definitily enjoyed making their
poster and doing the research, but did not pay close enough attention to the rubric. The oral
presentation went well and contained all information necessary to fill out the supporting graphic
organizer.
Reflection on the activity and assessment

I taught the lesson A walk in Time, a lesson that takes students through the history of our earth
and literally has them take 250 steps for every 500 million years. The students have in the days
before researched as a group one of 8 specific periods in earth history. They received a clear
instruction of what information was needed and how to present it in form of a poster. Students
received a rubric which served as a checklist to make sure they included all the required
information on their poster. Students were divided into 8 groups of 4-5 students (because there
are 8 PCs available for independent research), taking care that English learners were paired with
good native speakers, and shy kids with socially active, outgoing peers, to ensure that all students
would be encouraged to talk and contribute. Before the walk, ELL students and low or average
achieving students also received a vocabulary list with many of the terms that they will need to
fill into the graphic organizer. Their organizer contained word-starters: the first letter of each
period of time was given, to ensure that every student knew at which point of time they had
arrived, but still make them write out the name. The assessments all together touched on every
possible language learning experience, reading, listening, writing, speaking, researching and
selecting important information. A big part was also collaboration. The formal evaluative group
assessments leveled out individual learning challenges and gave every student a chance for good
performance and a sense of pride in their work. Every student could focus on his/her area of
talent, and I was impressed with the artistic and creative talent that some posters revealed. There
was great engagement visible, students took pride in presenting a good poster to their peers, and
seemed in the majority to enjoy the process of creating it. The supportive individual component
(graphic organizer) added an element of more personal responsibility for their grade. Every
student was able to fill out the whole complicated organizer during the walk!
The idea of this lesson is ingenious. It creates a hands-on, foot-on, minds-on activity that engages
all learners, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, artistic, performance loving. During the lesson, students
move and experience an actual change of scenery. The required product, the poster, gives them a
chance to present their own creation (yet in a group, so anxiety levels were low). The students
obviously enjoyed their day as well as the day before when they got to research the facts online.
All presented their specific part of their group poster. While one group was presenting, the other
students filled in their graphic organizer which had a slot for each of the specifics that had to be
researched by each group. Students themselves divided up their speaking part, with students with
good presentation skills taking on the longer parts.

All over I thought the posters were all exceptionally well done, most of them contained all of the
required elements. Many showed quite some artistic talent in creating an impressive title, or
designing a visually very appealing and informative poster. Since the groups were all mixed in
terms of student performance level, a generally good and comparable quality was expected.
Many posters also contained colorful graphics, which means the students printed those graphics
out at home (there is no color printer at school). The level of engagement was high, and so was
the quality of the product. The graphic organizer that had to be filled out individually, showed
more variance in performance, but all organizers were more or less complete and showed great
effort.

I will always teach this lesson. It showed me how much an interesting and challenging lesson
design can create engagement by all students. I do not expect them to be able to recite every
period with its specifics, but I want them to have a general understanding for our life and earth
history, and hopefully some details stick with them because they themselves researched and
presented them.