Call for Posters

Learning and Teaching Forum: Assurance of Learning
Tags:teaching, forum, professional development, career, toolkit, assessment

As part of the May 2012 Learning and Teaching Forum: Assurance of Learning, you are invited to develop posters that explore issues in and/or approaches to the design of standards-based assessments to influence student learning. 

Possible foci for posters include:

  • How standards-based assessment can be used to improve student learning 
  • Impacts of introducing standards-based assessment on student learning 
  • Issues in the introduction of standards-based assessment to assure student learning 
  • The role(s) technology can play in the use of standards-based assessment to assure student learning
  • The development of standards to assure students’ learning of UNSW and/or discipline specific graduate attributes 
  • Using standards-based assessment to reduce/resolve student grading disputes.

Posters can be submitted in traditional print format or innovative multi-media forms. This year, for the first time, a prize will be awarded for the best poster, as voted by Forum attendees.

Posters will be displayed in the Forum and an opportunity to view them and discuss with colleagues will be provided in the agenda. You will not be asked to make a presentation. Additionally, all posters will be published in a poster booklet with ISBN that will be provided to all attendees, and will also be published online on the Teaching Gateway of the UNSW website.

Submission instructions

  • Please submit a tentative title and abstract (200-250 words) by Monday 26 March to m.jollie@unsw.edu.au. 
  • Successful applicants will be advised by Friday 30 March.
  • Posters will be required in PDF format by Friday 20 April. The Forum team will advise entrants of technical requirements and will arrange for poster printing. The Learning and Teaching Unit will cover the costs of printing. 
  • Assistance for multi-media presentations will be available at the venue. 

Criteria for poster presentations

  • The poster should be designed to provoke discussion
  • The poster should ideally include the voices of students (e.g. student feedback) 
  • The poster should be of appropriate publication quality for inclusion in the booklet. 
  • The size of the poster is A1 
  • The poster should include the logo of the Forum (to be provided)  
  • The text should be easily read from a distance of 1.5–2 meters
  • The poster can be an electronic or multimedia presentation: please get in contact with Melinda Jollie (m.jollie@unsw.edu.au) to discuss best approach.

Tips for effective presentation

When developing your poster you might like to draw on the following tips which have been adapted from Hess, George R: Effective Scientific Posters: Quick Reference

  • A poster is a visual communication tool
  • An effective poster will help you to engage colleagues in conversation and get your main points across to as many people as possible
  • Posters serve as: a source of information; a conversation starter; a summary of your work; an advertisement of your work

Get your message across with visual displays and small blocks of supporting text. Think of your poster as an illustrated abstract.

Tell readers why your work matters, what you did, what you found, and what you recommend. Avoid excessive focus on methods - it's the results and implications that count!

Overall appearance. Use a pleasing arrangement of graphics, text, colours. Your poster should be neat and uncluttered - use white space to help organise sections. Balance the placement of text and figures.

Organisation. Use the headings to help readers find what they're looking for: objective, results, conclusions, etc. A columnar format helps traffic flow in a crowded poster session.

Minimize text - use graphics. Keep text in blocks of no more than 50-75 words - don't create large, monolithic paragraphs of prose.

Use colour cautiously. Dark letters on light background are easiest to read. Stick to a theme of 2-3 colours. Avoid overly bright colours.

Don't fight reader gravity, which pulls the eyes from top to bottom (first), and left to right.

Prepare a verbal explanation. Colleagues may ask you to "walk them through" your poster. In making such a presentation, avoid reading the poster. Instead, give the big picture, explain why the problem is important, and use the graphics on your poster to illustrate and support your findings and recommendations.