Gallery Walk

One of my favorite activities to do with students is a gallery walk. The gallery walk is just another way to complete a worksheet.  What I do is take one problem and put it onto a sheet of paper   Then I take the problems (about 20 or so) and put it up around the classroom or the hallway.  It depends on how big your room is and how much wall space you have.  Then the students go around and solve the problem using a sticky note.  On the sticky note they need to answer the question and explain their thinking.  I like this activity for several reasons, but two very big reasons.  First, it is real time feedback.  I can monitor the students understanding of the problem and where their thinking is incorrect.  If I see that a student has the wrong answer or explanation on the sticky note, I can call them over and have a quick mini lesson and ask follow up questions to make sure they understand.  Then if I have similar questions to the one they were stuck on, I can monitor their understanding by asking them to complete that problem and see if they can apply their new knowledge.  This is particularly useful if I have word problems up and the students are getting caught on the question and not the mathematics.  The second reason I love this activity is because the students are moving around solving the problems and they go back to check their work.  One of the rules I set in the beginning of this activity is that you have to solve each problem.  This ensures the students go back and check the problem to see if they answered the question already.  I don't know why they are more willing to re-solve the problem to make sure they are answering it correctly, but I have seen tons of students that never check their work the entire school year, go back and check their work during this activity.  It's great. I love that students can see each other's thinking and help each other out to solve the problem.  I love that I can work one on one with a student while the other's are occupied in a meaningful activity.  This is a great activity, you should definitely try it.