Designing and Implementing Exemplary Content, Curriculum, and Assessment in Art Education by Karen Popovich.
There were several points from this article that I felt shared some ideology with VTS. The first was the emphasis on the use of big ideas in the development of an art curriculum. VTS images tend to follow a big idea for each grade level. Also, our course text and various course readings have advocated the use of big ideas. The second point was the cooperation of teacher and students to develop meaning. VTS is a facilitated discussion between all stakeholders in the classroom to create meaning. A third point was the emphasis on research, with out which the author felt students couldn't make meaning. VTS is an excellent way to research visual artworks.
Some things that surprised me were how well VTS seems to fit in with post-modernism and the study of visual culture. Both VTS and post-modernism do not target one absolute truth. Also, the "de-emphasis of high art over popular art," seemed to, in a small part, fit in with VTS. I think that choosing art for a VTS curriculum requires a teacher to balance many styles, cultures, time periods, etc - and doesn't necessarily make the statement that one type of art is best. Students should be given a wide variety of appropriate images to discuss.
It's funny that VTS has been around since about 1995 and yet, it seems "cutting edge" today; very post-modern! It lends itself so well to art of all kinds, including visual culture. Derrick even used it with a music video in one of our graduate classes and it worked! The only drawback was not being able to point to exact moments in the video that evidenced a particular interpretation. I"m working on an interactive iPad strategy to use with videos, though. I'll keep you posted!
ReplyDelete