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...Home > Services > Newsletter > Lizard Index > 1995-1996 Issues > The Poster / Post-it Activity

The Poster/Post-It Activity

By Michaelk Pebworth, GTF, History

If you're ready to try an active small-group problem-solving method in your class, try the Poster/Post-It Activity -- it's adaptable to several different goals. Because of its visual quality, it can be useful in a number of classroom situations with groups ranging from 20 to 60.

I first used this activity when I was a teaching assistant for a U.S. history survey course with more than 200 students. I was responsible for two discussion sections, each with 25 students. We met once a week for 50 minutes. I was looking for in-class activities capable of engaging students and teaching important skills.

Here's how the Poster/Post-It Activity works:

The class is divided into small groups of three to five students each. Each group is assigned a number and asked to situate themselves just below a large blank sheet of paper taped to the wall. (It's convenient, by the way, to number the posters before class so students can walk into the classroom and immediately find their group.)

Pads of Post-It Notes are distributed, and each group elects a recorder. The instructor poses a question or task for the groups, who brainstorm for a period of 3 to 15 minutes, while the recorders write down every idea and post them on the posters.

Once the students have had a chance to get all their thoughts onto the posters, the activity can go a few different ways. The groups can simply report to the rest of the class what they came up with and, if needed, the instructor can ask groups to justify and explain their examples. The groups can also use the information they generated to formulate a thesis statement in response to a question. The instructor can introduce a short reading, an idea from lecture, or a video clip and have the students synthesize resources. The groups might also comment on the usefulness of one another's information and put together a study guide for an exam.

This method is valuable for both instructor and student. The visual element allows the instructor to see at a glance what's going on in the groups. If a group has nothing posted, the instructor can check in to see if they need assistance. Some groups have tried to get all of their information on one Post-It before putting it up. While this does demonstrate environmental awareness, it can also defeat the purpose of the activity. The notes lend themselves well to categorizing, sequencing, and grouping information, which can be saved and used at a later date.

Most students are engaged by the process of brainstorming, and are comfortable with small-group problem solving. This method allows them to see how other groups are doing. If they start to compare their output with that of their peers, they might be encouraged to put in some extra energy. However, the point is not to win the race. It might be beneficial, too, to have groups tour the posters and see what other groups are thinking.

Students are also comfortable with refining their data. Whether the students report once or twice, verbally or in writing, the information they need to rely on is all around them and in their own handwriting. The instructor can see which students contribute to the group effort and which stare out the window.

This method also provides opportunities for aiding skill development. If a group is having a hard time with their thesis statement, the instructor can immediately see the material they're working with and deduce whether it's a lack of evidence that's the problem, or whether they need additional thesis models. The method can help move a class away from simply trying to absorb content, and it demands an active classroom. The quality of the day's output rests heavily on the amount of preparation and energy students are willing to put into it.

Examples of Poster/Post-It Activity

• Synthesizing

  The history course I assisted in covered one hundred years of history in ten weeks. The course moved quickly, and one of the biggest problems my students had was making connections among the different sources of information. In addition to three lectures a week and textbook reading assignments, the students were asked to read four books, ranging from an accessible autobiography to a sophisticated monograph.

  The professor made it clear that his focus was to examine the changes that occurred between 1890 and 1990 in three broad themes: National Identity (what does it mean to be American?), Public Policy and Social Reform (what does the government do and when do people try to change its responsibilities?), and the U.S. as a Superpower (how and why did the U.S. become one?).

  I decided to ask my students how (and if) one week's assigned reading, Mamie Garvin Field's Lemon Swamp and Other Places, helped them see these three larger themes. Lemon Swamp recounts Field's childhood and family history and explores her experiences as a teacher and community activist in Charleston, South Carolina. The book says a great deal about African-American communities and racial segregation in the urban and rural South in the early part of the 20th Century. It also includes information on industrialization, Eastern European immigration, and the impact of the first World War on everyday life.

  I created six groups of four students (two groups per theme), each with their own poster. I planned the groups in advance, and within each group I tried to balance the number of talkative students with shy and quiet ones. I also kept an eye on gender parity. Since this was the first time I had used this method with the class, I gave each group not only a theme but also some recent lecture topics that fit under that theme. For example, the two Public Policy and Social Movement posters also used "Progressivism" and "Women's Activism" as subheadings.

  When I asked the students to come up with illustrative examples of these topics and themes, the paper started to fly and the decibel level rose. The students who had done the reading quickly summarized short portions of the book and used them as illustrative examples. Even the quieter students contributed; those who were totally quiet admitted to not having read the book.

  Although we had time for reports from only three or four of the groups, the session was rewarding. I was able to question some of the examples the groups had come up with, and press them on how and why their evidence was appropriate for that theme. Even more important, throughout the report time, students were writing down what the other groups had to say -- they were clearly learning from one another -- so much so that I collected the posters and compiled their information into a handout for the following week. This gave me the chance to see what ideas still remained to be discussed, so I added some questions to the handout to provoke further thought. Prior to the mid-term exam, students told me that this handout was a valuable study guide, and for the most part, it was one that they had written themselves. Many students used evidence from Lemon Swamp in addition to textbook/lecture data as part of their exam essays.

• Thesis Statement Formation

  Most of the exams in the history courses in which I've assisted use essays rather than multiple choice questions. One of the most important skills a student in a history class needs is the ability to write clear concise thesis statements. History instructors are not looking for one correct factual answer; they prefer an argumentative essay that takes a position in response to a question and uses factual evidence to illustrate a point of view. The Poster/Post-It activity is useful for thesis-writing skill building because it provides students with the opportunity to create a very visual body of evidence and sets the stage for a collaborative learning process. Students use their posters to help one another articulate an argumentative thesis statement.

  Prior to the activity, I modeled for my students some good argumentative thesis statements drawn from old essay exams. I emphasized that in order to take a position on an issue, students must have some information on their side to use as evidence. I also argued that a good thesis statement provides some indication of where an essay will go and what it will cover -- it acts as a map. After discussing what goes into a thesis, I gave my students some practice.

  Our assigned reading that week was Frederick Douglass's autobiography, which offers vivid descriptions of slavery in the early 19th Century. Each group was given a poster and a major theme from the book, such as slave culture, literacy and education, the brutality of slavery, or religion. If I had it to do over again, I would assign the themes the week before so the students could be more prepared.

  Once they had posted all of the illustrative examples they could come up with, I asked for a very quick report from each group. I then spent just a minute or two reviewing the basics of a thesis statement. Next I gave each group an essay question that pertained to their theme and asked them to write a thesis statement in two parts. First I wanted each person to write a statement on their own and hang on to it. Then, once everyone in the group had a thesis, they had to compare their statements and come up with one for the whole group. At the end of class each group turned in their individual thesis statements and the group statement. I grabbed all the posters and compiled the most useful illustrative examples, and added their thesis statements. Sure enough, when paper time came later in the quarter, Douglass's book attracted the highest number of students, and some of the most well-written argumentative papers.

  Once students have something visual in front of them, they can work with it, especially since it is of their creation and not something thrown at them. This method is certainly not limited to illustrating themes from a book; it can be used as a warm-up exercise based on opinions, and review sessions, which often wind up being rather passive affairs, can become active. These are just two examples of how a relatively simple activity -- quickly brainstorming and getting it down on paper -- can pave the way for critical thinking.

 

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