The trifold brochure wins the award for most versatile student project. The possibilities are endless! Brochure projects give students a chance to be creative while showcasing their newly acquired knowledge. There’s so much you can do with trifold brochures, you can’t go wrong! Plus, brochure projects are perfect for differentiation, incorporating technology, and designing a standards-based assessment. The following list contains twenty five unique trifold brochure project ideas. Which one works best for your students and curriculum?
Differentiation
As our class sizes rise and our teacher planning time seems to shrink, it is becoming more and more difficult to differentiate every assignment and project. A trifold brochure assignment allows for differentiation, making it possible to meet the diverse needs of all students in your classroom. When designing your brochure requirements, think about what would work best for your students. Would three versions of the assignment (advanced, intermediate, and beginner) work well? Would it be beneficial to encourage and develop individual student strengths? For example, visual learners might create a brochure that includes a majority of illustrations while linguistic learners might focus more on writing. Read more about differentiated instruction in this article from Concordia University. In it, author Cathy Weselby explains what differentiation means and how it works. You never know, it might lead to some great ideas for differentiating your brochure projects!
Technology
Looking to incorporate more technology in your instruction? Have no fear, the trifold brochure project can do just that! The great part is that you can include as much or as little technology as you wish. On the heavier end, students can design their entire brochure online. Free online applications such as canva.com include templates for brochure design, making it easy for your students to create their own unique brochures. Students can also create their brochures in Google Slides. It’s less flashy than Canva, but it will still get the job done.
If requiring your students to design their brochures using technology isn’t a realistic option, your students can still utilize technology in the research or information collection stages of the brochure creation. Depending on the nature of the brochure, there is likely an aspect of the project students can use the internet to complete. I did something similar with the historical travel brochures my students created. They completed the brochures on paper, but used the internet to research the historical location.
Standards-Based
We all strive to create standards-based lessons and assessments, making the trifold brochure a great candidate for checking all the necessary boxes. Because you are designing your own unique project, you have the power to ensure that it is standards based. The easy way to do this is to plan backwards. Start with your lesson or assessment objective(s) and design the project from there. Planning backwards will ensure that each brochure panel will give students a chance to showcase their learning. That way, you can rest assured that your brochure project is an intentional and meaningful learning tool.
Using a trifold brochure in place of a typical assessment will give your students a chance to do something new and different. Don’t get me wrong, tests are extremely important to the instructional process, but assessment doesn’t always have to come in the form of a written test. In my experience, students enjoyed the process of mixing creativity with deeper levels of analysis. I think your students will too!
I love this tool! It will make student publishing sooooooooooooo easy! -Donna M.
