Contents
Types Of School (And Educational) Posters
Characteristics Of An Educational Poster
10 Poster Examples To Inspire Students In School & College
Suhith Kumar RN - January 10, 2022 - Leave your thoughts.
Posters are an attractive, colorful learning material that improves the learning experience. An educational poster enables visual learning and makes concepts easier to understand and retain. A quote poster helps motivate students to stay disciplined and inspires them to chase their dreams. For teachers and instructors too, a poster is an effective tool to explain complex concepts and subject matter.
Let’s take the example of nursery school education and curriculum. A large chunk of the syllabus is made up of visual content - presented in a colorful, easily digestible format, to aid a child’s learning. While new iterations of textbooks provide more illustrations and present information in visual formats (graphs, charts, infographics, and more), they cannot take the place of an educational or learning poster.
According to Social Science Research Network, 65% of people are visual learners, while less than half that percentage (30%) are verbal learners. The following reasons indicate the reason educational posters are effective:
- They have fewer words and contain plenty of color and illustrations, which help students to focus and instill the motivation to learn
- Poster content helps retain students’ interest in a subject
- Students absorb visual information much faster
- Posters are a constant source of information and learning for students when their placement is consistent
- Poster size makes the content easier to follow and absorb
Apart from the aforementioned benefits, displaying a poster before teaching a new chapter is an effective way to get students involved in the subject. It draws their attention and builds curiosity to check what they already know and what they will be learning.
What also makes posters attractive is they enable unconscious learning as students can absorb information and knowledge simply by glancing. On the other hand, they’d have to open their textbooks and navigate to a certain page before they start learning and processing information.
Posters and other visual material are seen more in school and college libraries than anywhere else. The reason is librarians understand that visually-stimulating resources such as posters provide educational value, as much as they render aesthetic value to libraries and their surroundings.
Types Of School (And Educational) Posters
Educational or learning posters can be split into three categories. Posters that:
- Distinguish similarities
- Illustrate concepts and processes
- Elicit interest and convey information
The first type of poster, as the name suggests, is used to demonstrate the subtle, key differences between two similar concepts or objects.
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The second is helpful in explaining processes and phenomena. For example, a unit in science on the eruption of volcanoes can be explained with the help of a poster. Likewise, the water cycle process of water evaporating from the surface of the earth, rising into the atmosphere, followed by cooling and condensation, is another example that can be illustrated with the help of a poster.
The third type is what we commonly find in libraries: the type that is designed to stimulate children to imagine and whet their interest in a subject or topic. The main objective is to inspire students, rather than educate them.
Characteristics Of An Educational Poster
For teachers and instructors, it’s important to use posters that aid the learning process. Almost all posters tend to be colorful and attractive, but not all of them are effective for students to learn and improve their knowledge. An effective educational or learning poster will have one or more of the following features:
- Inspire and motivate students to learn
- Guide the teacher (or instructor) on how best to use the poster
- Offer suggestions for after-class work or learning activities
- Stimulate and inspire student interest in a subject or topic
- Illustrate concepts and topics easily
Principles Of Designing An Educational Poster
While most principles of a poster design apply, an educational or learning poster must work in a certain way to appeal to students and for it to be effective.
With that in mind, let’s delve into the key aspects of educational poster making.
Communicate Clearly
Posters are designed to be a colorful abstract - and are certainly not a wall-mounted essay. So, keep text to a minimum. But your poster must still be clear in communicating ideas, the main takeaways from a chapter or a unit, and other instructions that students must follow.
Therefore, break down your thoughts and inputs into bullet points and small, crisp sentences. Ensure that the key points (and inference) are displayed in graphical form.
Legibility
The text and all visual elements of a poster must be clearly visible from at least a meter away (if not more). Legibility will help students to follow the poster from where they are seated in a classroom or a conference hall and is integral to maintaining focus.
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Ensure that the main title of your poster is large, while the length of it is kept to between six and eight words. This should be enough to grab your students’ attention and instruct them with the help of the poster.
Reading Hierarchy
The traditional way of reading is from left to right, and top to bottom. The key here is to ensure the layout is simple and, at the same time, eye-catching.
Therefore, use the center part of your poster to highlight the key takeaways, a definition, or a scientific equation, and make use of the left and right to support what’s been mentioned in the center. This will help students to easily follow the subject matter and absorb the information.
Graphs
Ensure that you include charts, graphs, and other data visualizations to make concepts clear and comprehensible. If you’re including graphs and charts, make sure you format them for posters.
For example, you might need to provide titles for axes, provide clear plot lines, differentiate lines using colors, and so on.
Poster Examples For Students
Here is a list of 10 poster examples that can be used to inspire, motivate and remind students in a learning environment.
Example #1: Stack Of Books And Back To School Announcement Poster
Use this to alert resumption and welcome students back to school after term or annual holidays. It’s a simple poster that requires little to no customization. It can be printed and displayed on the front noticeboards where it’s prominent to students and parents. Or it can be downloaded and shared online on the school’s social media pages to convey the message in real-time.
Example #2: Brown Background Happy Mother’s Day Poster
This poster can be used to remind students of Mother’s Day, which is celebrated on the second Sunday in the month of May. It’s possible that not all students remember this day of the year. The poster will not only remind them but also get them to honor and show their appreciation for their mothers.
Example #3: Blue Background Happy Father’s Day Poster
Similar to the Mother’s Day Poster, use this to remind students of Father’s Day, which is commemorated in most parts on the third Sunday of June. The day is a celebration of fatherhood and the important role played by fathers in society.
Example #4: Blue Background Make Your Vote Count Poster
Activities such as student elections will instill leadership qualities in children from a young age and it’s a key part of making education and learning a holistic experience.
Organizing an election in school to give pupils the power to choose student leaders to represent them? Then this poster is designed to encourage students to participate in the elections and cast their vote.
You must include the voting deadline and customize the web address before displaying it.
Example #5: Minimalist Monday Motivation Poster
Use this poster to provide Monday motivation for students and nurture them for maximum productivity for the entire week. The poster copy will encourage students to rise from the slumber of the weekend and get into the thick of things. Absolutely no customization is necessary and is tailormade for display in the classroom or on the main school noticeboards as students enter the campus.
Example #6: Save The Earth Environmental Poster
Education won’t be complete if students aren’t taught environmental conservation and about saving the earth from global warming and other phenomena. This is an environmental awareness poster that is suitable for display in classrooms on World Environment Day, which is observed on June 5 each year.
The poster contains a short but important nugget of information on global warming, while the text “Save the earth now” serves as an awakening to students to contribute to environmental protection.
Example #7: Light Bulb Energy Conservation Awareness Poster
Use this poster to educate and involve students in discussions about energy conservation, and their role in it. For example, students can be instructed to turn off lights and fans when they leave their classrooms or a conference hall, as that helps in energy conservation. It, after all, is a conscious decision and practice that helps save energy resources.
Students have an important role to play in conserving and saving energy, and the right use of this poster will help spread awareness.
Example #8: Man Wearing Face Mask No Mask No Entry Poster
Mask-wearing, maintaining social distance and washing hands are essential practices in today's climate. Use this poster to reinforce the message among students to continue to follow best practices that will keep themselves and their families safe.
Customize the poster copy to ensure the messaging is appropriate for students and one that they are able to follow within the school premises.
Example #9: Racial Discrimination Awareness Poster
Use this poster to encourage equality and inclusion among students, while raising awareness against racial discrimination. It will also help if teachers can inculcate the history about racism, how to report an incident and so on, to provide direction to students to tackle the issue and help eliminate it.
The poster requires little to no customization before use and is ideal for display in classrooms and front noticeboards for maximum exposure.
Example #10: Forest Background Our Planet Poster
This is designed to be displayed on Earth Day, which is an annual event on April 22. Use the copy to reinforce the message that students must do their bit to help protect the environment. School managements can use this awareness day to organize events and conferences to have students actively participate in activities that provide them with vital experience.
Conclusion
Posters are versatile and are therefore useful in enhancing the learning experience for school and college students. They help inspire and motivate to learn, while simplifying the learning process. What’s more, teachers and instructors can use posters effectively to break down concepts and to enable visual learning.
In addition, quote and awareness posters help provide holistic education by instilling values in students outside of their subjects. Posters offer seamless placement on school and classroom noticeboards where exposure to students and parents is at its maximum. They also promote unconscious learning, which is not always possible with textbooks.
Picmaker is a free online poster creator that helps design and customize posters in minutes. You don’t need design skills to create a student poster - and all templates are free and ready to use. You can choose one of the poster templates from the large library and customize it as per your need. Thereafter, you can download it in either PDF, PNG, or JPEG format, or share it directly on your favorite social media platform to notify students of school reopening, a landmark day, or another occasion.
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