Teaching Tools and Personalizing Your Classroom

Learning is more effective and stimulating when you are using teaching tools that are already in front of you. It is up to teachers and other school staff to ensure every student has the tools they need to learn. When students know what tools they have available and how each works, they are more apt to pay attention and, in the long run, learn what they need to succeed.

Personalizing Your Teaching Tools with customized products like engravable signs, name plates and badge holders for identification.

Why are customizable products great for teaching tools?

By customizing our products to meet your school and classroom needs, you can help improve your instruction time. For example, free up time in your schedule by hanging custom signs with simple instructions so they don’t need to be constantly repeated. Use name tags and name plates to show teachers’ names. And even have badges available for parent volunteers. Here are several of our most popular items that teachers use as teaching tools for their classrooms and schools.

Custom Engravable Signs

Custom engraved plastic sign with a school's bell schedule and someone from administration as teaching tools to help students.

Use our engravable custom signs in your classroom today. For example, personalize a custom sign to show your classroom schedule. Or have a sign engraved with other classroom instructions. While these signs are a great teaching tool for the classroom, they work just as well for the rest of the school.

Use them for bell schedules, No Running in the Halls signs and even more. Each engraved sign is available in multiple colors on durable plastic material. This means that you can customize the color to match your school decor or even show some school spirit. Add logos, graphics and text to make your message seen.

Personalized Name Plates

Two lines engraved into a name plate to sit on a teacher's desk as teaching tools to help students.

From teachers’ desks and doors to the counselor’s office, name plates can be used everywhere in your school. Not only are name plates great for teachers’ names, but they are also great for identifying different classrooms and other areas in the building.

One of the great parts about custom name plates is adding your logo or school mascot next to names. Or you can use icons to designate closets and other rooms throughout the building. They come in the same durable plastic material as custom signs so that you can match everything in your building.

Badge Holders and Lanyards

A badge holder that has a printed insert with a teacher's photo to be used with a color lanyard as school identification.

Step up your security with personalized badge holders and custom lanyards. With a handy photo and your school’s name printed onto replaceable inserts, badge holders just became your best friend. Using these inserts, you can instantly identify teachers, staff and even visitors quickly by printing any information you need and sliding it into a holder.

Then match the lanyard to your badge. By using colored (and maybe custom imprinted with your school logo), you help your staff and visitors keep their identification handy. Lanyards are also perfect for fundraising events, sporting meets and any other time your school gets together.

Personalizing Your School and Using Teaching Tools

From the classroom to the counseling center, we have custom products to make your school run smoothly. Use these great teaching tools to help your teaching and instruction. Do you have other ideas for our custom products? We’d love to hear them!

Here’s a fun idea: when giving out welcome gifts to your students, make sure to wrap them with fun ribbon rolls. Your students are guaranteed a great first impression when handed trinkets with personalized ribbons wrapped around them. And, maybe they will even behave a bit better as a way of saying thank you for your thoughtfulness.

Graduation Awards and Recognitions

Typically graduation ceremonies are done en masse and followed by a personalized celebration or party. After all, it’s a significant achievement that is worthy of celebration. Moreover, each graduate deserves a chance to pause and think about all that led to this triumph. So, why not make this a possibility all the time by giving graduation awards to every graduate you know.

Custom graduation awards as personalized plaques and desk wedge name plates.

Custom award plaques and professional name plates do just that. These personalized items make an excellent award for any achievement. But, with a class of excellence above any other, these beautiful plaques and desk blocks are sure to show how much you care. Whether you give one of these as a gift or buy one for yourself, the professional quality reflects the excellence you demand from yourself and your education.

Celebrate your graduate with a professional desk wedge!

Executive name plates are perfect for showing just how much you appreciate someone. They also make an excellent award for any achievement. With a class of excellence above any other, these beautiful nameplates are sure to show how much you care. Whether you give one as a gift or buy one for yourself, the professional quality reflects the excellence you demand from yourself and your company.

8.5" Red Alder Desk Wedge personalized for a graduation award
8.5" Rosewood Desk Wedge name plate engraved for a recent graduate.
Black Acrylic Desk Block with engraved text to be used as a graduation award.

Graduation Awards – Desk Wedges

Congratulate the entire graduating class with these affordable desk wedges personalized for each graduate. Or, take it all a step further with a gorgeous high gloss desk wedge customized with a graduate’s name, accolades and year. With four different wood styles to choose from, everyone who gets these name plates as graduation awards will know how much you think of them.

Graduation Awards – Acrylic Desk Blocks

Celebrate your favorite graduate in style with a one-of-a-kind gift of an engraved acrylic desk wedge. From names and accolades to a graduate’s favorite quote, these one-of-a-kind desk blocks are sure to be the best award a graduate receives.

Graduation award plaques for the win!

One of the best things about customizing a unique gift plaque is that you can give it to nearly anyone in your life. From a favorite teacher to your grandpa, everyone will enjoy this thoughtful gift. Just remember that your message should always fit the recipient.

8x10" Rosewood Plaque with Floating Acrylic Plate designed to look like a graduation diploma.
9x12" Genuine Walnut Plaque With Metal Scroll Frame with an engraved plate that will be used as a graduation award.
8x10" Alder Plus Plaque engraved with a message to thank a teacher for the contributions.

Graduation Awards – Rosewood Plaques with Floating Acrylic Plate

Inspire your graduate with an award that fits their style. And, what a fun and unique way to present someone’s accolades to them! Personalize a plaque with a graduate’s degree for them to hang when they land that dream job. Each metal plate on an award plaque can be engraved with names, insignia and other graduation information that is custom for a single graduate. You will inspire confidence and excitement as you give your graduate this one-of-a-kind award.

Student Awards – Genuine Walnut Plaque with Metal Scroll Frame

Tell your students exactly what you think of their accomplishments with an embellished plaque. The metal scroll feature on this plaque style will help them feel that they are already a professional. And the engraved details of their accomplishments are guaranteed to provide an award suitable to any graduate. In addition, with various available sizes, making plaques for every student or only a few is highly affordable.

Teacher Thank Yous – Alder Plus Plaques

Don’t forget the educator who made your graduation possible. Custom design a plaque that will make any teacher or professor feel like your accomplishments are theirs. Create a message that is unique to one teacher, or buy them for all of your teachers. From thanking them for their time and talents to commending them on a job well done, your educators are sure to appreciate your graduation even more with these classy awards.

More Ways to Personalize Your Graduation

Another great idea is to use badge ribbons as a non-traditional invitation or announcement. Choose custom ribbons with imprinted text in your color choice and add a saying or quote. Add a graduation graphic, the graduate’s name and the ceremony’s date. These are sure to stand out and make your graduate feel extra special.

Read more: 5 Ways to Personalize Your Graduation

Classroom Prep: Custom Signs for Teachers

Using something as simple as custom signs will help any teacher with their classroom prep. From decorating to giving instructions, use these tools to help your classroom run smoothly. These signs can also help keep your students on track and provide them with help where/when they need it.

A Teacher’s Guide to Student Engagement (Using Custom Signs) - The Learning Center By Coller Industries

Using Custom Signs for Your Classroom

Get students excited about their education with classroom signs. Use them to encourage participation with motivational quotes and classroom rules. By hanging these custom signs behind your desk, you’ll have no trouble keeping students engaged throughout the school year.

Whether teaching in person or online, classroom signs will look great behind your desk, or anywhere they are easily visible. Customize each sign with text and graphics that remind your students why their education is essential. As they see these signs every day, they will stay motivated to pay attention and participate in class.

Keeping Students Engaged with Classroom Signs

Here are some unique ways to engage your students by using custom text and graphic signs. Remember, you can create nearly any design you want so that you can share what you need with your classroom.

Custom engraved sign for a teacher to present school rules for student engagement.

Class Rules: Help your students remember classroom rules with beautifully engraved signs. Add steps to complete projects or basic rules to remember to each sign. No matter what you choose to add to your signs, remember these are fully customizable, and you can add nearly every instruction you will need for your classroom.

Inspirational Quotes: Motivate your students to do their best every day by sharing quotes from famous scholars or inspiring leaders. From Dr. Seuss to William Ward, add your favorite learning quote or message to any sign. Choose from our fonts or provide a fancy one, and don’t forget the graphics to go with your quote!

Learning Objectives: Help students stay focused on their education by giving them specific goals to work toward during class. Then, add these goals to a new sign that you can display at the front of the classroom to help remind your students that they are striving for bigger and better.

PRO TIP: The above list is only a few things that our custom signs can be used for, so let your imagination flow and design anything you need for your classroom!

Designing Custom Signs

Custom engraved, plastic signs used in a classroom for helping students stay focused.

SIZE: While we offer standard sizes, don’t be afraid to venture into the custom area. We can do any size sign between 20 and 144 sq inches!

TEXT: Choose one of our stock fonts or provide your own and add nearly any text you need to get your message across.

GRAPHICS: While we are limited to details due to our engraving machines, don’t feel like you can’t ask for something spectacular. After all, look what we did a while back!

FRAMES: Depending on the size you order, hanging your sign is easy with a black or gray frame.

DESIGN: If you don’t know how you want your sign to look, we have a design team waiting to help you. Submit any idea, and we will work with you to get it from concept to finished product.

Need more classroom ideas? Here’s some help to get you started!

Going Back to School with Ribbons

While we don’t have pens and notebooks, we do have something you need! Check out all of these different ribbons. And, find out why they are essential to have in your classroom and available for your students.

A Teacher’s Guide to Student Engagement

You may think having students who want to be at school and learn from their teachers sounds to good to be true. But that’s what schools that focus on increasing student engagement are seeing. More than coming to class and turning in homework, engaged students are enthusiastic about their education and have a desire to excel in their classes. If you want to see your students succeed, you must figure out how to engage them in the learning process.

A custom sign with classroom rules and a plaque with an inspirational quote, each designed to increase student engagement.

What is student engagement?

In education, student engagement refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.

How does student engagement affect learning?

Multiple research studies have found that students who arrive on time, pay attention in class and complete assignments are more likely to get higher grades and graduate on time. On the flip side, studies have found that students who do not pay attention or participate in classwork have lower grades and are less likely to graduate on time. Because student engagement directly impacts student performance, it is essential for teachers to recognize when students are engaged and increase that level of engagement.

How can you tell when students are engaged?

There are three types of student engagement: behavioral, cognitive and emotional.

Behavioral Engagement is when students actively participate in the learning process. They show up on time, turn in their homework and bring the materials they need for class. They also participate in class discussions, do what their teacher says and consistently try their best.

Cognitive Engagement is when students try to learn as much as they can. Not only do they pay attention in class, but they also ask thought provoking questions and go beyond what you ask them to do.

Emotional Engagement is when students have a positive outlook on their educational experience. You can tell students are emotionally engaged when they treat you and their classmates with respect and approach schoolwork with optimism.

To know how invested your students are in their education, look for all three types of engagement. If you only concentrate on behavioral engagement, you may overlook students who feel left out or need to be intellectually challenged.

What makes student engagement challenging?

Custom ribbons with a school mascot and logo attached to an apple, used to increase student engagement.

Keeping students engaged is hard, both in a classroom setting and an online learning program. In a classroom, you have to teach all of your students at once. This makes it hard for you to determine how quickly you should go through a lesson. If you go too fast, some students will get frustrated as they fall behind. If you go too slow, other students will lose interest as they wait for the next activity

The difficult part about teaching students online is that they can get easily distracted. Not only can they get lost in browsing the internet or playing video games, but they can also get disrupted by other people who do not realize they are in class.

Online learning also makes it hard for students to connect with the class emotionally. If students feel that they don’t have a relationship with you or their classmates, then they are less motivated to participate in discussions or do their homework.

Student Engagement Strategies

Now it is time to plan how you will increase student engagement. To help you get started, here are some ideas that apply to almost every grade level. And they work for classroom and online teaching.

Behavioral Engagement Strategies

Students will know how to behave when you give them class rules to follow. List your class rules on a custom sign or plaque, and hang it where students can see it. Make sure to include a rule about students treating each other (and you) with respect so that everyone has a positive experience.

Get more students to participate in class discussions by putting each student’s name on a name tag. When you have a question for the class, draw a name tag out of a box and ask that student to answer it. This strategy prevents the same students from answering all of the questions. It also motivates your students to stay alert because they never know when their name is going to be chosen.

Another way to get students to stay alert is to use blank ribbons as attention signals. Hold up one color ribbon to say when it is time to listen and another color when it is time to discuss. Using these visual cues helps your students know what to do and stay engaged throughout the lesson.

Cognitive Engagement Strategies

Motivate your students to do their best by coming up with learning objectives for your class. Learning objectives show your students what they can achieve if they pay attention and complete assignments. Once they understand how your class benefits them, they will take it seriously. To keep these learning objectives on the forefront of their minds, add them to a custom sign or plaque for all your students to see.

Keep your students focused on their schoolwork by making educational bookmarks for them. Use Custom Top Ribbons to make full-color bookmarks that teach grammar rules or math formulas that will help students with their homework. Your students are sure to appreciate these learning tools and use them for textbooks and other class materials.

Part of keeping your students engaged mentally is giving them a chance to unwind. To make this easy, customize name tags with a wide variety of mental breaks (e.g., sing a song or play rock, paper, scissors) and put them in a jar. When it is time for a mental break, take a tag out of the jar and have your students do that activity.

Emotional Engagement Strategies

Get your students excited to learn by decorating your classroom with ribbons, plaques and more. Even if you teach online, decorating the room you are in with bright colors and custom designs will stimulate your students’ imaginations. Hang a ribbon chandelier from the ceiling or drape a ribbon garland along a wall. Give your whiteboard a little flair by lining the edges with a brightly colored ribbon. To decorate your desk, customize an acrylic plaque or desk wedge with an inspirational quote and graphic.

Emotionally engage your students by helping them get to know you and their classmates better. Customize badge ribbons with a wide assortment of positive characteristics, such as Life of the Party or Proud Computer Geek. Have each student wear these ribbons during class by attaching them to their shirt. (Don’t forget to wear ribbons that describe you.) By using these descriptive ribbons, your students will emotionally connect to you and their classmates as they see (literally) how much you all have in common.

Students will have a positive attitude toward learning when you make it fun. Use paper inserts to play trivia and other games with your students. While you are at it, why not throw in some friendly competition with spelling bees and other contests. Don’t forget to pass out Achievement Ribbons so your students will always remember the fun they had in your class.

What engagement strategies have worked for you? Share them in a comment so other educators can benefit from your expertise.

Improve Performance Through Student Engagement

No matter if you are teaching online or in person, keeping your students engaged in the learning process will improve their school performance. They will earn better grades, score higher on tests and graduate on time. So what are you waiting for? Put custom name tags, ribbons, plaques and signs to work for you so your students will reach their potential.

Creative Way to Use Badge Holders

Badge holders that have printed inserts to help a young child in school by using dry erase markers.

It’s back to school time, and you need a way to make sure your child is ready. A great creative way to use badge holders to do that is to make a dry erase work book. You can replace the inserts with more challenging material as the school year goes on. Simply wipe away the dry erase marker with a cloth and reuse the badge holders again and again. This way you can make sure your child is ready for tests or quizzes. It is important to play an active role in your child’s life and this is a great way to get involved.

And, our badge holders can do a lot more than that. Do you have any ideas on how to use our badge holders? If so, let us know! We would love to feature your creative ways to use badge holders idea right here on our blog.

Start your order for these now!

More creative ways to use badge holders

While we don’t have pens and notebooks, we do have ideas you can use for any back to school needs. Here are even more creative ways to use badge holders at home or in any classroom.

  • Badge holders for name tags for staff or kids.
  • Parent volunteers and visitor identification (quick printing using paper inserts).
  • Easy accessibility of a calendar or schedule printed on the insert.
  • Classroom games with color coordinated inserts and appropriate text.
  • Label things around the classroom for instructing the students.
  • Fun personalized bookmarks that can be reused and redecorated.
  • Add a lanyard for an easy to use hall pass or when sending a kid on an errand.
  • Print the insert with students’ names and use them as backpack tags.
  • Customize fun and reusable desk tags for each student.
  • Easy to change seating arrangements for the classroom or a school event.
  • Print a special message on the insert for teacher gifts and then attach it to a present.
  • Slip in a photo of each student and hang them where kids leave personal belongings.