Class #4 - Gallery walk tableau

Week 4         

          In today's class, we learned about two strategies that spoke volumes to me. The one strategy is known as a gallery walk. This is something that I am familiar with but the ways in which it was used helped me to see its versatility in the classroom. Previous to this class, I've always used the gallery walk as a way to allow other students to reflect on their classmate's work. Learning from our peers is an effective way to share information and to encourage meaningful conversations.  In today's class we used the gallery walk as a way to facilitate self-reflection. Self-reflection is an important process of any lifelong learner. Knowing how you feel about something, why you feel that way and addressing your next steps based on those reflections can be a difficult process. Using several nature images - such as fire, trees and eagles, to name a few - our task was to choose a picture that resonated with our experience in the teacher education program.

Dekker, Z. 2017.

     
          After choosing an image, we were asked to discuss our reasoning behind choosing that picture with the others who gathered there. In this way, our instructor encouraged community and cooperation by creating a small group setting that had us sharing personal information.We weren't required to share this information with the entire class. It created a safe space for those individuals who might be uncomfortable with this process. As a future educator, I think that I could use this strategy to encourage those students to come out of their shell. Watching their peers take part in this process might help them to open up, to look within themselves and to use the process of self-reflection as a learning tool.
          Another way that our instructor used the gallery walk was even better than the last. Displaying a series of cultural celebration images, our class was asked to choose the picture that we identify with most. Having recently traveled to China, the image that spoke most to me was of the lantern festival that takes place at the end of the Chinese New year.

Dekker, Z. 2017.

          I absolutely loved this use of the gallery walk for the purposes of cultural inclusivity. In a world where the majority of our classes are filled with students from various cultures and backgrounds, this activity put a real face on our future classrooms. When students see themselves and their culture represented within their learning environment, it helps them to see their classroom as an extension of their home and to feel safe. In each of my former teaching placements, my classrooms have been predominantly Caucasian. I don't feel as though I have had the necessary opportunities to plan for or encourage cultural inclusivity. This activity will be one that I definitely use in the future and can be easily adapted for a variety of learners and various concepts.
          The second strategy that I wanted to focus on was the open and close tableau. During this strategy, groups of students were encouraged to create a series of tableau scenes about a given fairy tale. The rest of us were encouraged to close our eyes each time the group was creating a new tableau. What I really liked about this strategy was the connection that it had with theater and the process of going from a completely blacked out stage to a fully lit one. Each time we were asked to open our eyes to view the next scene, it was as if someone was turning the lights on to reveal something important. This activity also created a high level of student engagement. Keeping my eyes closed encouraged me to want to know what was coming next. I found it very interesting to see the next created scene and to piece that image together with the last one that I saw. Thinking about my future classrooms, this strategy could be used during a book review to display particular scenes from a book. This would encourage students to use the reading comprehension skill of visualizing to recall the information that they have retained from the book.

Dekker, Z. 2017.