My students need to share and compare work in the classroom on as a learning community. A cork wall will provide a place for students to share and study each others work.
What good is an awesome project if no one sees it? Projects often result in a product such as a report, poster, infographic, artwork or any number of things created by an individual or team of learners. Students should display their work for an extended time so everyone can learn from it.
The seventh graders at our school in Colorado are an enthusiastic bunch who enjoy sharing their learning with the whole class and the whole school.
This year we have started posting projects and even simple assignment work in the hallways so that the entire school knows what we are doing and how much pride we take in learning.
We also want to bring the work back into the classroom and put it up so everyone in all the classes can see what other people have done--not just the people in the same class period. In this way, students will evaluate their own work in a larger context. Also, such a display serves as a locus for community discussion about how everyone can learn from each other and improve their work moving forward by observing the work of others.
When work is displayed for an extended time (several days or weeks) it increases the opportunity for discussion and self-reflection on one's own efforts. And, when students' know their work will be displayed, they try harder!
My Project
We want to convert a whole wall's worth of blackboard into a cork wall! The large blackboard on one side of the room is enough board space for our purposes and the learning environment will be improved by creating this extra large bulletin board for putting up student-created classwork, art, posters, graphs, book analysis projects, science papers, flow charts, mind maps--all kinds of things.
The cork will be attached using a large number of magnetic strips,which I already have and will donate to the project. The existing board will not need to be removed and will not be damaged in any way. The cork wall will look permanent but be completely portable and can be moved to another room if needed with ease.
It's not about getting the answers right or making the perfect graph on the first try.
It's about improving all year long, sharing the best of what we know how to do and continuously improving. The cork wall will provide a great way for large amounts of work to be constantly on display for the students to reference and learn from.
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