Purpose         

This activity gives students the opportunity to share their work with other students. By creating a gallery or carousel in your classroom, you can give students a chance to showcase their ideas and discuss their conclusions. In addition to showing their ideas, students talk to others who circulate around the gallery or carousel. In this way, students can teach and learn from each other. This activity has the added benefit of requiring that students get up and move while they learn.

Use this strategy after students have worked in pairs or triads to create a visual representation of their thoughts or research on a particular topic. Examples include posters, graphic organizers, poll results, or drawings. (Note: We have not included instructions for assigning students to create those visuals here. We are focused here on strategies to share their completed work.)  

Procedures

  1. Arrange the room so students can spread out along the perimeter.
  2. Ask students to stand together with the one or two other students who helped to create their visual display. The pairs or triads of partners should spread out along the perimeter of the room, forming a large circle or square.
  3. Instruct students to tape, hang, or display their work product on the wall behind them. If students created their work online and it must be shown that way, arrange for computers to be available to display their work.  
  4. Ask one student from each group to come to the middle of the room. Explain that these students will have the first chance to check out the work of the other students. They will be the moving learners. (Other students will get a chance to be moving learners shortly.) Ask the other student(s) to stand by their displayed work products. They will be the standing student teachers.
  5. Explain that in a moment, the moving learners will spread out across the room to speak to the standing student teachers who are standing along the wall near their work. At your cue, ask the moving learners to choose a standing student teacher to talk to. The standing student teachers should share their work, explain how it relates to the topic, and answer any questions from the moving learners. Tell students they will have two or three minutes to share for each rotation. Confirm students understand the instructions.
  6. Begin the first round. After about two minutes, give your cue (ring a bell, turn the lights off and then on, etc.). Your cue should signal the moving learners to rotate and meet with a different standing student teacher. After two or three rounds, ask students to switch roles and switch places. Now, the standing student teachers get to be moving learners and vice versa. Again, the moving learners should rotate on your cue. Follow the same pattern until this second set of moving learners have had a chance to circulate around the room to see at least two or three sets of student work. If students worked in triads, you may need a third round.
  7. Call the students together and back to their seats for a brief discussion. Ask students:
    • What were you able to learn from explaining your work to other students?
    • What were you able to learn from seeing and discussing other students’ work?
  8. If possible, keep the students’ work hanging around the room for the rest of the class period or even into the next class period.