Displays and bulletin boards don’t just make classrooms cheerful places to learn. They also serve several purposes. Bulletin boards are part of community building in schools. They might lay a road map to show where a teacher is heading with student learning goals and objectives. Bulletin boards provide visuals for classroom management systems. They show upcoming class activities. Positive bulletin boards might share student engagement strategies and classroom celebration ideas.
In a Reflex classroom, teachers celebrate success as students build math fact fluency.
Why and how to effectively use bulletin boards in the classroom
Author/educator Michael Gravois said, “If a bulletin board becomes part of the learning, it saves the teacher from having to create it, it ties into the learning, and it gives the students ownership of their space.” What about classroom bulletin board effectiveness? In Gravois’ opinion, the most effective bulletin boards:
- Are interactive and make the classroom “come alive” with the curriculum material being studied.
- Give students a sense of ownership of the classroom by surrounding them with examples of their work.
- Are mostly created by students.
What about bulletin boards dedicated to math class? These are perfect for math intervention or reinforcement of skills and math facts as well as celebrations. Math bulletin boards are visual displays that help children see and remember the math concepts they learn. Make them interactive bulletin boards to illustrate student progress tracking. Bring in other subjects to show math in art or math around the world.
Utilizing Reflex bulletin boards for math fact fluency
Teachers using Reflex can—and do—use creative bulletin boards to increase the system’s effectiveness. Reflex-focused displays show how classrooms use the program and how well their students progress through math fact fluency tracking.
The three main types of Reflex bulletin boards we see in classrooms are:
- Green Light Usage Tracking- Research found that students who frequently achieved the Green Light were 7.4x more likely to reach 100% fluency. Why not celebrate that progress on a bulletin board?
- Fluency Growth- Reflex monitors usage and fact fluency progress with data available every 24 hours through individual and classroom reports. Post both on an interactive board.
- Celebrations of Success- Students love healthy competition. Track their achievements with boards that show progress toward their goals.
How else can educators better use these boards to promote success and engagement within their classrooms? Read on for more examples of bulletin boards that deliver positive reinforcement in education.
Use math bulletin boards as positive reinforcement
Teachers can use bulletin boards as positive reinforcement tools, pulling out the knowledge in students while giving them goals. A great example of this is Ms. McGinnis’ “All-Star Success bulletin board.” Each student had a goal to attain, and as they mastered these goals, their names and pictures went on the board. She put student pictures and names on stars, hung up milestone certificates, and kept a class fluency chart.
She even made an extension of the bulletin board, and when students got to a certain number of facts, they got a lunch celebration. She said that, with Reflex, “the kids have a better attitude about math. I’ve seen the confidence level soar in all of my students.”
Bulletin boards can strengthen other math concepts
Bulletin boards reinforce other concepts like graphing and make cross-curricular connections possible. Jennifer Perez, a Math Coordinator in Kansas, had her students create a bar graph of their Green Lights. Each day they got a Green Light, students added a green sticker to their graph to chart their own progress.
Another teacher in North Carolina taught her students how to chart their progress using a line plot. Students could see their progress, add milestones, and learn what a line plot was. A teacher in Michigan incorporated Social Studies content with her Reflex timeline. Students learn facts as they learn how to create and keep a timeline going.
Reflex-themed boards: Students can track their own math progress
When bulletin boards set clear objectives and teachers have students create and add items to the display, they’re not only making a teacher’s job more effective. They’re also making it more manageable. Ms. Trevino, a teacher in Texas, shared a bulletin board that was drawn by her students. They tracked their own progress and drew their own versions of Reflex characters.
A teacher in New Jersey used the Fact Detail Report as a guide to create her bulletin board. They made a pyramid on the board like the fact family pyramid in Reflex. Students looked at the fact details in the program and then filled them in on the board. The teacher and students are using the tools in Reflex but taking them one step further so students can track progress and celebrate their successes.
Using bulletin boards for community building in schools
Bulletin boards can promote school-wide Reflex goals. In Washington, an Interventionist made a bulletin board to encourage healthy competition among grade levels. To create it, she just printed and hung up the reports from Reflex.
In Saskatchewan, Canada, a school made a thermometer to show students’ fluency progress, and students who reached 100% got to put up their certificates in a common area for all to see.Displays can also communicate school programs and their students' successes to the greater community. In South Dakota, a “Reach for the Stars” bulletin board featured the Ninja from a Reflex game and showed the current fluency for each grade level.
Elevate math fact fluency with Reflex
A 3rd-grade teacher at an elementary school in Granite School District in Utah reports that her students love Reflex! She also shared her fun Wind Rider-inspired bulletin board with us. As students’ fluency increases, their photos move from cloud to cloud.
“Many students come to 3rd grade without mastering addition and subtraction facts, which severely hinders their ability to become fluent in multiplication and division. This becomes a huge hindrance by the end of the year if not addressed.”
She uses Reflex as a “self-start” three days a week in the classroom. “I love having self-starts on their Chromebooks because it helps free me up to work with individual students on something they need support with.”
Maximize student potential through Reflex bulletin boards
Beyond making a classroom more colorful and visually appealing, bulletin boards empower and motivate students. They are valuable tools for communicating information, reinforcing concepts, and celebrating student successes. For more bulletin board ideas and implementation strategies, check out our Reflex Insights.
