Setting Up an Ideal Classroom

Jenie R. Dimarucut

At one time or another, everybody has been in a class that seems tedious and boring. Student’s winds up concentrating on anything and everything except what they are supposed to be focusing on. But as teachers, if we truly care about our students, we will ensure that their learning environments are acoustically effective, visually efficient, and filled with colours that enhance rather than detract from their learning. Designing your "perfect" classroom with your students can be a creative and community-building opportunity.

One of the most valuable, but most neglected and misused teaching devices are the Bulletin Boards but when effectively done, they can make your classroom program vital, exciting and interesting. Carefully designed bulletin Boards are of immeasurable value to the teacher in building student interest.

Bulletin Boards can be used to provide an overview of the semester’s works that enables the students to understand how each day’s work fits into a larger plan; to present a single lesson; to explain a specific part of a lesson – a process, technique, problem; to display materials related to the lesson; to display students’ work over an extended period of time; to display students’ work temporarily for criticism and evaluation; to develop a center of continuous interest; and to present routine notices and announcements.

In Bulletin Board Displays, a limited use of two or three different kinds of display material usually leads to more successful design. These materials may differ in color, size and texture, but they will be effective if used with simplicity. They should always be subordinated to the material on display.

In organizing materials to be displayed, three basic things must be considered: Choose the theme, the Descriptive Matter, and the Visual Materials (pictures, drawings, photos, three-dimensional objects). Visual materials should be carefully selected, using enough to tell the story attractively and effectively. Descriptive matter should be brief and straight to the point. Photographs should usually be mounted before being displayed, magazines and illustrations may be cut and stapled directly to the bulletin board. Interesting variations in photographs and illustrations can be achieved through vignetting. When displaying children’s work, do not attempt to include every student’s work in a single bulletin board arrangement. A valuable aid to good bulletin board design is the development of a picture file containing illustrations covering a variety of topics.

The purpose of the bulletin board is to make the students visualize such lesson by representing the concepts’ framework through graphic representations for the students’ further understanding and also for displaying students works that would likely motivate the students in learning and achieving the best that they can do. Bulletin board display must reflect the likes/ interests of its target audience, it must contain specific concepts about the content that the audience/students will likely be used to further understand the lesson.

--oOo—

The author is SST I at Sapang Bato National High School, Sapang Bato,

Angeles City