Assessing Gallery Walk

Gallery Walk can be assessed informally and through more formal evaluation involving oral and written presentations. This section has sample rubrics that can be used for evaluating different aspects of the Gallery Walk, ranging from group participation to the quality of oral and written reports. Feel free to modify these rubrics for the context of your own Gallery Walk.

Informal Evaluation

Informal evaluation does not count for a grade and can be as simple as rotating between groups and making sure each group is on task. There is further opportunity to observe and assess student learning during the report out phase and during ensuing class discussion relating to the report out. Regardless of the context, make a special attempt to involve disengaged students. Examples of questions that can be asked during a Gallery Walk include:

  1. "Your group seems to think ..... about this issue. How would you rephrase or summarize what has been discussed so far?"
  2. "What is your group doing now and where do you feel the discussion will progress? "
  3. "What similarities and differences do you see between the responses you are giving at this station and what was summarized at the last station?"
  4. "Your group seems to think...about this issue. Why do you say about that?"
  5. "How would you explain this issue to someone who has little or no background with this material?"
  6. Look at a particular response, either from the current group or a previous group, "This group said....is this correct? "

Formal Evaluation

thumbnail of students taking tests

Not every Gallery Walk needs to have assigned grades. Some students are more forthcoming and spontaneous without the pressure of formal evaluation. Still, there are situations in which formal evaluation is desirable, especially when the time and effort going into a Gallery Walk need to be justified. In the section below, find rubrics for grading the quality of group participation, oral presentations, and written work relating to the Gallery Walk. Another way to improve the quality of Gallery Walk is to have students assess instructor use of the technique. Sample forms are available below.

  1. Instructor/Student Evaluation Form for Group Discussion: (Microsoft Word 28kB Jul5 07) a short, three question rubric evaluating observed group behaviors like the degree of participation, listening, and assistance. This form could be used either by the instructor or by students to assess the quality of group interaction.
  2. Instructor Evaluation Form for Oral Reports: (Microsoft Word 56kB Jul6 07) a fairly detailed eleven part rubric for evaluating the quality of students' oral report during the "report out" phase of Gallery Walk. Included in the rubric are assessments of organization, content, research effort, and use of multimedia.
  3. Instructor Evaluation for Written Reports (Microsoft Word 40kB Jul5 07): if Gallery Walk involves a written component use this detailed rubric for assessing the quality of student reports. This 12 part rubric might be overly detailed for some papers so modify as needed. The link upon which this rubric was based:
    Rubric for Research Paper: (more info) from the University of Kansas, a twelve item rubric that evaluates papers using the following criteria: purpose, content, organization, feel, tone, sentence structure, word choice, grammar, length, use of references, and reference format.
  4. Student Rubric for Evaluating Group Work: (Microsoft Word 37kB May20 05) when the Gallery Walk requires group work outside class time, use this seven item rubric to rate other team members on such items as work ethic, participation in discussion, and ability to meet deadlines.
  5. Student Evaluation for Gallery Walk: (Microsoft Word 34kB May20 05) to improve the quality of future Gallery Walks, use this twelve question survey intended to show how well students enjoyed participating in a Gallery Walk.