Week 11 Blog

Reflect on VTS experiences and VTS curriculum to date.

How might VTS support "studio habits of mind" discussed by Winner?

What insights, epiphanies, surprises, and questions did the Soep article elicit for you as you prepare to employ VTS as a critique method with your students?

Overall, I feel VTS has been a positive experience. I have been fretting recently over the structural and behavioral breakdown that happens during VTS discussions with my focus group. The students that are focused during work time stay focused during VTS. The students who need to be engaged inn highly structured activities start to disengage during our discussions. But most students are able to complete assignments with an understanding of why they are doing them. 

VTS may support certain studio habits of mind such as observation, reflection, envisioning, engage and persist, reflection, and expression. Students are asked to gather information visually, as well as building meaning from peer interactions. Students are asked to reflect in their language and interpretations when called on to provide evidence. Students must be able to see various scenarios in order to infer meanings in narrative artwork. VTS helps students persist when facilitators allow students time to reflect and form thoughts. It also allows a format for students to express themselves. 

The Soep article seemed to define critique as a teacher moderated assessment strategy that occurs when the students naturally start to evaluate shared cooperative work. I think I will use this strategy when the students do a group art project, conveniently taking place next week :)

Week 11 Reading

"Visual Thinking in Arts Education: Homage to Rudolph Arheim" (Winner)

My thoughts jumped allover the place as I read this article. I reflected on my efforts to pinpoint the big ideas in my curriculum, in choosing the techniques I select to enforce, on the teaching craft and studio craft I am developing as a fifth year teacher. I ponder on how different my perception of the purpose of art education is different from my non-art colleagues, administration, and some of the other art teachers in the district. I despair of my lack of persuasive speech - I wish I could distill the essential meanings of the writings I have read this year and communicate them verbally to those around me - this is what I do, this is what I'm striving for, this is why we do not make table decorations for the PTO in art.

I was drawn to how Winner repeated that the value of arts education does not lie in the transfer of cognitive skills to more "basic" school subjects. That art teaches thinking skills that are not taught often today in "regular" classes, but are fundamental  to problem solving and work ethic. Not every student in my class will grow up to be an artist, but there are things essential and fun (also essential) to be learned in art classes.

"Critique: Where Art Meets Assessment" (Soep)

This article seemed to define critique as a spontaneous conversation initiated by student peers when working on a collaborative project. The author found value in the occurrence of such conversations because critiques allowed the students ownership over the formative assessment necessary for a quality product. It is important to note that the critiques occurred informally as needed outside of a classroom setting. In this situation, the facilitators of the student collaborative project listened to the critiques as a form of student assessment, and helped redirect or clarify when needed.

As a victim of numerous scheduled critiques in college art classes, I wonder if the role of the art teacher is not to conduct the critiques, but to reinforce the social skills students will need to get the most benefit from these discussions.

Bowls

 

After VTSing Picasso's images La Soupe and Le Gourmet, the kindergarten students made pinch pots out of Play-Doh. The next day the students wrote about their bowls. One of the kindergartner teachers helped me with the writing prompt. The prompt was formatted to reinforce the writing they were doing in the classroom. The writing prompt was, " What would you make in your bowl? Tell why you would make it. Tell how it would make you feel." The writing prompt reflected the meaning the students gave the images. The overall consensus was the girl in Le Gourmet was mixing something in her bowl, and that the food in the bowl was given to the woman in La Soupe.

Blog #10

                                   La Soupe, Picasso


The Gourmet, Picasso


How was the experience different from the traditional VTS discussion of one image for you? For your students?

 By placing two images side by side, I knew I would be leading the students to compare and link, so I had to try to guess what connections they would make before I chose the art-making lesson. My students hesitated briefly in choosing which picture to address; a few addressed both in connection to each other.

What positive or negative challenges did the “side by side” image approach create for you? For your students?

The negative aspect for me was knowing that I was setting up the students to make certain connections, that maybe in the guiding I was somehow being manipulative.  I don’t know if they could figure out that these are two works only related by artist; that the artist did not intend a narrative between the two images. Six year olds see images mostly in a narrative sequence, and this mind set might guide or limit their comparisons/contrasts.

Another challenge for me was to find good but simple images that could be read and compared within the 10 minutes I have to discuss with them before they get unmanageable. Even though they can VTS a more complex image singly, I was looking for images that would be accessible for first time kindergarten VTS students because they were being compared side by side.

I notice some of the students paused briefly before they spoke, as if they were deciding which image to talk about. I would mark this as a positive because I could sense that they were thinking and making decisions. Some students who accepted a narrative link between the two images had to come up with justifications for the discrepancies between the two images. There was a lot of narrative built around behinds the scenes actions.

Did the compare contrast strategy enrich instruction/learning in any way?

The duplication of a girl using a bowl reinforced the concept of a child their age using a bowl. Which lent it self to the art-making activity.

Would you use this compare/contrast strategy in the future? If so, what purpose might it serve? What alterations in the environment or instructional approach would be required to make it successful?

 If the purpose of a unit was to have this age group construct narrative to achieve meaning, I would compare/contrast images again. I could see this strategy being used with older students to transition from one artist to another in a unit that explored a big idea. The VTS questions have to be tweaked to make such a comparison successful. “What is going on in these pictures?” Also, additional questioning that prompts comparisons if the students do not do so naturally.

Are there any cautions you might offer your classmates?

The placement of two images guides and limits the students in making meaning.

Week 10 Reading

Which of Rath's thinking operations are supported by VTS?

Stage One, gathering data through observations,  is supported by VTS. The VTS questions of "What do you see happening in this artwork?", and "What do you observe that makes you say that?" encourage students to gather visual information through their senses. 

Stage Two, processing the data gathered, is also supported by VTS. This is done when  VTS questioning asks students to provide evidence for their interpretations. Also, higher level viewers  may me classifying artwork and comparing a particular piece to another.

VTS vs. Wasserman's new curriculum model

I interpreted Wasserman's article as suggesting that teachers shouldn't teach at the bottom of Blooms, define, identify, and recall. Teachers should use questioning techniques that allow students to process and apply knowledge, as well as evaluate ones own work. As in other articles we have read, the teacher should function as a facilitator that helps students build their own meaning and become better at evaluating themselves and their work. Wasserman also echoed reading from our class text that also suggested that curriculum should revolve around big ideas that students can study.

VTS correlates with Wasserman’s curriculum model in that higher order thinking skills are being taught through a questioning strategy. Wassermann’s curriculum goes through all the steps of Blooms, but VTS, as it is practiced with my kinders, does not flow past analysis, and that is me being generous. I can see, however, how a level 4 viewer is engaged in the highest levels of critical thinking. Creating a curriculum unit that includes VTS as part of the art experience is  a good strategy for developing analytical thinking.

Has VTS had an impact on classroom management in your classroom? Has VTS had an impact on the maladaptive behaviors in your classroom?

I don’t think VTS has had an impact on management and maladaptive behaviors. My gut feeling is that the students would need to be engaged in thinking skills curriculum daily for quantitative change to appear. Discipline in my school is still status quo – positive rewards for being good sometimes, and punishments for poor choices. It would be neat if the classroom teachers and counselors could implement this information.  I have been playing with the idea integrating P.E.T.S lessons in to my art lessons in order to encourage thinking skills for about a year. I think this article has given me the nudge to put the P.E.T.S. books into my summer To Do pile.

Blog #9

VTS and Relationships

Is VTS impacting relationships in your classroom that are, in turn, enhancing teaching and learning?

Student to Student relationships: I don't know if the VTS sessions are impacting the students relationships among peers, or how to tell.

Student to Teacher relationship: My focus class is the only class of K students to ask me why - why are we doing this project, why are we looking at this artwork. I would like to think they feel safe in verbalizing their questions to me, or it just may be the particular group of kids.

Teacher to Student relationship: I definitely view this age group differently after VTSing with them. They are so bright and such great thinkers. Going in, my focus was in helping them build basic fine motor skills and art literacy. My lessons with this group are really guided. I have a big discombobulation internally right now. They need guidance for skill development and it is hard for me to find ways to let them be truly creative.

Art Teacher to Homeroom Teacher: VTSing with this class has led to conversations with the classroom teacher that I had not had previously. I think it has helped build a bridge professionally between art and regular classroom learning. I can incorporate what she is teaching about writing and story telling into my art lessons and VTS.

Is VTS impacting classroom management/behavior in any ways? Explain.

Briefly, yes it has affected my procedures. I now have an area for discussing art work (dots on the floor) and an area for work (tables).

But I would like to turn this question around a little. Does classroom behavior affect VTS? My particular focus class has a behavioral diversity that is not present in the other kindergarten classes. I am noticing a breakdown in the quality of VTS sessions over the school year. I started my VTS journey with this class in the fall. For the first few discussions, a few students were suspended, or not in the district yet. I have not seen the likes of this in about five years, in a middle school. This particular kindergarten class is a different organism.  I can not underscore that enough.

Reading Week #9

The one unanswered question I had after reading this article was ---Is knowledge the same as meaning?

The rules for authentic discussions about literature seemed to reflect the rules for VTS, diverse roles, attentive listening, respect, etc. When reading this article, I reflected on the benefits and disadvantages of being a 'special area' teacher. As an art teacher, you'd have the benefit of long term relationships that impact the class environment. Yet, if the class as a whole has a lot of friction, that culture is sometimes hard to overcome when you only see the kids once a week. Also, the variety of grades and classroom cultures could potentially cause confusion for the teacher - a teacher would have to be able to code switch often to meet the specific speech genres of different grade levels. But it is food for thought - breaking down the speech genres of each grade level to better communicate with the students. Authentic discussions require a lot of pre teaching that the study did not mention - how to be a good listener, how to use humor in a positive way, how to discuss respectfully. It seems that the environment needed for authentic discussions requires a school culture that builds those basic skills and manners, year after year.