Engaging Students With Wall Decals

MARCH 2, 2019| SpeedPro Richardson

Written by Dan Bertoncini, President, SpeedPro Richardson.

We were contacted by Ms. Elizabeth Brown, a Teacher at Richardson High School, to come up with a way to highlight various Colleges and Universities in the hallways of the school as inspiration for their AVID program. AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, is a college readiness program designed to help students develop the skills they need to be successful in college.

She invited me to walk the halls with her to see what solutions we can come up with. By the way, you can’t get this service when you only buy online. A dependable business partner is needed to collaborate and provide the solutions service needed. This is what we do all the time.

As we walked through the halls we came up with the idea of making large vinyl decals of University icons without naming the University. We then placed a six-inch square QR code decal that will direct the students to the university website by using the camera on their smart phone.

We also needed to inspire students about careers.  Ms. Brown pointed me to the Texas Career and Technical Education (CTE) website which lists the 16 career clusters. When you select one of the clusters, its webpage includes description of the associated careers and representative image for that cluster.

We printed the Career Cluster images on wall vinyl and added a QR code decal that directs the student to that career cluster’s URL.

Finally, when we arrived at the AVID lounge there was a recessed wall that was an ideal location for a large graphic. We decided on a word cloud and she came up with a brilliant way to engage the students by sending out a survey requesting that students come up with three words that describe what AVID means to them and three words for Richardson HS. The results were then printed on a large contour cut AVID logo and the Richardson HS mascot eagle head. The students are then challenged to find their words on the wall decal.

The students seem to love their new decals and get to learn about different Colleges, Universities and Careers using one of their favorite tools, their Smartphones.