Boulan 6th graders participate in Gallery Walk Day

Boulan Park Middle School Students Walk to Learn

After three weeks spent on a special social studies project, sixth graders at Boulan were excited for “ELP Gallery Walk Day.” ELP stands for Extended Learning Project, where students spend several weeks exploring a topic they would like to know more about, above and beyond what is in their textbooks. With help from Boulan’s Media Specialist, Christina Chatel, students learned how to write a research question, what is a reliable source, what are databases and how to use them, and how to use an application called “NoodleTools” for notecards and documenting sources for their bibliography.

Students have lots of choice and control about how they do this project. They are allowed to choose the topic, decide to work individually or as part of a group and pick the type of project they want to do (ie Powerpoint presentations, build a model, create a poster/tabletop display.) Said BPMS social studies teacher Cindy Shankin, “One student even created a video game that I had to play. That was an example of real creativity, and out of the box thinking!”

Students also created their own rubric for Shankin to use in grading the project. “Being able to create our own rubrics is a good opportunity because we get a chance to focus grading points on what we think is important on our project,” said Lea Clark.

But back to the Gallery Walk. This is the day that students set up their projects and their peers got to walk throughout the class to see each other’s projects. As students walk around the room and look at the projects they write positive comments on a form to leave by the project they have viewed. The next day students read the comments that their peers wrote. “Student quote: “It gives me a chance to learn what other students in our class think about our project,“ said Ajitesh Venkatesh. Gallery Walk day is really fun, because we get to learn from all of the different projects, not just our own.” And that’s how you create a true authentic learning opportunity.

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Photos courtesy of the Troy School District

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