What is a Gallery Walk?

What is a Gallery Walk?
• A way of sharing information with people that is interactive and involves visual and kinesthetic learning. If you can play music while people are doing this, you can also activate auditory learning.
• Posters are made and hung on walls with information for participants to read.
• Participants walk from poster to poster reading the content, the more graphics and color the better.
• Give each participant stickees and ask them to write their thoughts, comments, questions, about the information they are reading and then put the stickee on the poster. Examples of comments people have written include things like “ Great, I agree, I like this, I want to know more etc.”

What are the Advantages of a Gallery Walk?
A key benefit is that people understand and remember more information than if the same information was presented in a “lecture” or power point. Using the stickees provides two other benefits 1. people engage with the content in an active way by posting their thoughts, and 2. People learn how others are reacting to the information.

What are the two ways to use this Strategy?

Option 1: Prepare Posters in Advance. You can use this strategy to share information that is planned in advance. Posters can be made with information on a particular topic, we’ve got 30 posters with information on how people learn, how the brain works, and some key concepts about positive psychology that we’ve been using for years.

Option 2: Prepare Posters on the Spot. Have small groups make posters during an event to capture their discussion and ideas. Pairs or small group discussions are very engaging for participants. If you want to share these discussions with others in the room you can do this quickly and interactively with a Gallery Walk. Hand out flip chart paper and markers to small groups and give them time to work together -- to capture the highlights of their discussions. Then post these posters on walls or display on tables so participants can walk around and read them. This allows everyone to learn about the themes in the entire group and is much more effective than having people report out verbally. Using the stickees also allows people to connect the themes that are emerging quickly.

More information on Gallery Walks is available at http://aea365.org/blog/?s=gallery+walks


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