There are many strategies out there that can be useful when teaching english language arts in a middle school classroom. For this reason, it is our jobs as teachers to seek out these useful strategies and try to implement them in the classroom. This will make our lessons better and will benefit the students in a great way.
One strategy that I think can be very effective in a middle level classroom is a gallery walk. I believe that it can be developmentally appropriate if it is implemented properly. Through this walk, the social domain can be developed because it gives students the opportunity to walk in groups as they explore material. We all know that a gallery walk is set up so students can move around while they are learning, which can bring about problems in a classroom, but it can be done.
How it can be done is the question that many may ask. Classroom management is very important vwhen doing a gallery walk. You have to ensure that you group your students in groups that will allow them to be successful. Particular interest must be place on jobs that you place your low ability students in because you want an environment that can enhance their learning. Additionally, you want to ensure that students are on task. Therefore, it is necessary tohave questions prepared or worksheets while they are participating in this gallery walk. Furthermore, you want to make sure that the classroom is not chaotic. With this, you should set out expectations before allowing your students to complete the activity. I believe these techniques would allow the gallery walk to be successful.
A gallery walk would me most appropriate to use when discussing characters of a book, or any other material that may have simialar results. This way students can walk through the classroom and see other prospectives. Additionally, they can compare and contrast their responses. I believe that it mainly depends on the teacher and if they are open to having students moving around as much, but this style can be effective with many activities.
Here is an example of how you can implement a gallery walk in the class. these are three basic steps that I feel can be useful.
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Ashley, I agree that a gallery walk would work well if students are discussing characters in a book. What's the difference between a gallery walk and a carousel activity?
ReplyDeleteI also like the idea of using a gallery walk to discuss characters from a book. For that matter, a social studies teacher could use a gallery walk to discuss noteable people from history. In both scenarios, students can create pictures/words for the "gallery" as we did with our images of middle school students.
ReplyDeleteI think a gallery walk and a carousel activity are terms that many teachers would use interchangably. They both involve students rotating through stations or galleries in groups and in many cases answering questions on particular galleries. I would be interested to hear an experienced teacher define the difference between the two.
ReplyDeleteThis site defines a gallery walk
http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/gallerywalk/
This site defines a carousel activity
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/intro/activities/23820.html
Nice work finding those sites Ben. Thansk for visiting. I think they define both really well.
ReplyDelete