College Research Project and Poster Presentation

This project is designed to increase student interest in colleges as well as teach valuable internet research skills.

The project begins with the student completing a College Research Worksheet to gather information from the college website. There are 17 questions, including demographic information, tuition/fees/board, activities, admission requirements, and financial aid to ensure that students consider all aspects (not just the fun ones!) of the college.

Once the data has been collected, students design a poster that highlights the important aspects of the college and present it to the class. The project concludes with a reflection worksheet that helps students summarize their likes and dislikes as well as what they need to complete to meet the admission requirements.

Rubrics are included for the Poster and Presentation portions of the project.

My recommendation is that students should complete the College Research Worksheet for 3 colleges to allow them to compare/contrast multiple schools. After the data gathering stage, the student should then select one of the previously researched colleges to complete the poster and the presentation. Following the assignment, student posters can be hung in the classroom and/or hallways to help other students learn about various schools.

I used this project in my ACT Prep class. It took 3 block periods (90 minutes each) to complete and the conclusion was assigned as homework. It would also work well to do the research and posters for homework and then do the presentations during class time.

In addition to ACT prep classes, this assignment would work well in homeroom, AVID, and middle school classrooms. Since this activity is student centered with little-to-no direct instruction, it would work well for a substitute teacher day, snow day activity, end-of-the-year filler after standardized tests, etc.