Student Contributor: S. Smith
The Refrigerator Wall is a technique used to display the student’s work and/or achievement. This is helpful because it gives the students a sense of pride and belonging to see their work displayed to the class.
The design can resemble an actual refrigerator or can be a bulletin board labelled “The Refrigerator”. There are two different ways that this tool can be used. The first is to have students submit their own work/achievements or drawings that they created and are proud of. The Refrigerator gets filtered out at the end of each week (which can be turned into a student job) and returned. This gives other students the chance to have their work displayed as well. The second way is to display projects that everyone worked on like creating real-world examples of graphs or how their blueprints for their dreamhouse. It is important to mention for this particular way that the grades should not be displayed because this can compromise the emotional safety of the child if they are embarrassed about their grade. I have experience with this tool being used in the latter technique- my teacher used it to display group work. I have also seen some schools have an art wall in their building where students submit drawings they have created, and it gets taped to the wall for the whole school to admire.
This tool falls under the Supportive Phase category because it provides a sense of community, inclusion, and success. When a student sees their work displayed on the “Refrigerator”, it will make them feel proud of their work, it will make them feel included and like they are part of the community with everyone else’s work. This could fall under any of the theories of influence. If a teacher decides to use this tool in the first way, which was to have students submit their own work, it would be more student-directed since they have the choice of submitting their schoolwork, artwork, and achievements. If it is used in the second demonstration, which is to use it as a display for class projects, it would be more teacher-directed because the teacher is deciding what is displayed.
More Information –
Tool Source: This idea was suggested during a class discussion with my peers.
https://www.scaffoldedmath.com/2015/06/displaying-student-work-on-fridge.html
