How Classroom Learning Walls Can Transform Your Teaching

Perhaps a final step isn't exactly what I mean to convey to you as it relates to inquiry, but it's the final one I will share with you in this series of blog posts.

This powerful step is one of the inquiry moves that's evolved and grown in my personal practice since Leading with a Lens of Inquiry's release.

It's an action that's aligned with the values of a constructivism.

It's one that's creative and nuanced.

And, its' visual nature makes it one of the easiest things to "see" in the classroom.

This week I'm sharing a strategy that reminds me about more playful with my thinking and highlights just how we respond and plan for learning that's meaningful and connected to our learners.

Learning Walls

How we make and keep the thinking and learning visible is an intentional action we take to highlight what's important in the learning; the process. And while our systems and standards can make us feel just the opposite, learning walls are the very thing that nudge us to slow down, carve our space for our learners to make their own connections and are some of the first steps we can take at co construction (I don't know about you but the "co construction" part of inquiry was the most challenging for me be grapple with under the pressure of district standards and state mandated assessments).

There's no how to manual I can share to build a learning wall that applies to all contexts but I always start with the same question, what's the one thing that I want to highlight?

This simple question helps me pause and reflect to consider what's most important to the learning. Whether it's the central idea for your current unit of inquiry, your campus or classroom's vision statement, an essential question provided by your curriculum department or an overarching concept, choose a focus.

I'm currently building a handful of learning walls on my campus, each uniquely highlighting area of focus, to help ground and connect us as a learning community. These displays lift up the type of thinking I want my learners to engage in, anchor core concepts we can return to and make connections with and remind me to collect artifacts and rich evidence from our learning experiences with one another.

And while I can't give you a check list to help you build a learning wall, I can show you what this looks like in my personal practice. These suggestions are rooted in questions and I hope inspire you and build one with your learners:

— What materials and artifacts are necessary to build a learning wall?

— How would you go about starting a learning wall?

— How do I look at the evidence to determine my step steps?

— What happens when learners aren't making the connections that I want them (or need them) to?

— What can I do with a learning wall when I get to the end of a unit?

— What do I do with all of the student questions I collect?

Maybe these questions and examples are just enough for you to take a risk in your practice or to find something new to explore? Maybe you consider documenting and sharing your learning wall on Instagram or Twitter, further connecting yourself and your learners to a broader community? Or maybe these questions help you reflect on how your space cultivates the conditions for curiosity and meaningful learning? Either way, I hope you consider how this might impact your mindset and even your learners.

I'll be jumping on Instagram next Sunday, 11/6 for another episode of the Going Further with Inquiry series I started last fall. A fantastic inquiry leader from the International School of London Qatar* will be jumping on with me sharing her own learning wall with us. I've been fortunate enough to coach this leader over the past year and super excited to be able to chat with her about the process of building the learning wall, what challenges she's faced and hear more about her thinking and ideas related to it. *if you have your copy of my publication, you've seen a photo of her inquiry notebook featured in one of the chapters

Mark you calendars for next Sunday, snap a photo of your space and scroll through my Instagram feed to see more examples of learning walls that I share over there. A reminder that none of this needs to be perfect or "Instagram worthy", that learning is messy and settling into the process can help us all be a bit more mindful throughout the busyness of our days.

I look forward to seeing where these steps take you, what impact they have on your mindset and the ripples effect they have on the learning.

I'll be speaking more about learning walls during the inquiry event in April in Vancouver and hope that you'll consider attending this unique event with some of your colleagues. In the meantime, reach out to me with questions, share your celebrations and connect with me further if you are interested in a bit more support (simple reply to this email to let me know what you need).