The Class Poster Conference as a Teaching Tool

We designed a semester‐long biomathematical modeling project that culminated in a professional‐style class poster conference. This approach was chosen over the traditional term paper to increase the amount and sources of feedback each student received, provide students with opportunities to share their work with a wider audience, and foster the development of important communication skills. Students experienced the whole range of activities required to prepare for and attend a professional conference, including writing an abstract, preparing and presenting a poster, and answering questions from fellow scientists at the conference. Student evaluations of the conference indicated that it was an excellent learning experience. However, as instructors, it was difficult to maintain the intense focus needed to give consistent evaluations during the 3‐h poster session. Multiple sessions, multiple evaluators, or collecting posters for final evaluation after the conference may improve the consistency of poster evaluations.