Visual Thinking Strategies Workshop
April 16, 2009Learning Opportunity at Point Lookout
photo by Charles Hamm, Belfast HS art teacher
On Friday, April 10, 2009 85 educators representing K-Higher Education from visual arts, world languages, technology, leadership and gifted education traveled from all regions in Maine to participate in a Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) workshop. It took place at the beautiful Point Lookout in Northport. We were on the top of the mountain and it was simply a GORGEOUS day.
Trainers Willamarie Moore from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and Michelle Grohe from the Gardner Museum in Boston did an outstanding job of presenting the information on Visual Thinking Strategies and consistently modeling the VTS techniques.
Philip Yenawine, co-author of VTS says: “kids start using their eyes to make sense of the world when they open them as infants. They look around them and they reason. Schooling very rarely takes any kind of advantage of that incredible strength that people have.” VTS is a program designed to encourage students to take advantage of those natural skills which develops their critical thinking skills and apply them to learning. These techniques are done while looking at artworks.
Three basic questions are used, the first one: What is going on in this picture? Students observe and build on each others observations with the facilitator encouraging kids to express their ideas. This impact students writing and some believe, reading. VTS is doing research that supports the impact the program is having on student achievement.
You can read and learn more at the VTS site. I invite teachers who participated in the session last week and the one offered two years ago to share comments here.
Thank you to Cathy Melio and Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport for collaborating with the Maine Dept. of Education to sponsor the workshop. If you liked to view more pictures from the VTS session please click here.
The VTS workshop was incredible! Art history has always been a passion of mine. The VTS model changed my thinking, my teaching and reinvigorated my passion for art history. I immediately implemented what I learned into my middle school class. It was some of the best discussions I have had in my 11 years as an art educator. I would love to have more training. VTS has forever changed the way I look at art!
Thanks for the feedback Lisa. We are considering some type of future VTS workshop in Maine.
I attended the VTS workshop on April 10. This week I tried out the process with two 3rd grade classes using the painting “Broken Eggs” by Breuze. It was fascinating to see the direction that their observations took and how they built on one another’s comments. We used the discussion as a springboard for art-making which was also interesting — topics the students depicted varied – angels, eggs in baskets, dragons (because they lived in the ‘olden days’ and the picture was old). A question: Every time I tried to paraphase what one very intelligent and talkative girl said, she would jump in and add more. Any ideas how to handle that?
Thanks for your comment Angeli! So glad you had a chance to try the VTS process. Hopefully someone will respond with suggestions.
Lisa and Angeli–It is exciting to hear that you both immediately tried VTS in your classrooms. It is also great to hear that 1 student is extremely excited about sharing her ideas–that is what talking about artwork is all about! In regards to paraphrasing, try a few things:
Let the student know that their excitement and enthusiasm to share her ideas is great, but remind her that it is important for every person to be heard, including you, the facilitator, and if she has more ideas to share, please raise her hand. If she becomes frustrated and/or insists on sharing more, then point out that it is important for everyone to have the opportunity to share ideas, and to keep those new ideas in mind while she listens to few other classmates’ ideas.
This excitement is so important to the discussion, and it is important to keep that going. By acknowledging her behavior, you are validating her response but also helping her to keep her behavior group-centered. Good luck!
Thanks, Michelle, for your tip on handling the facilitating. I will give it a try.
I would love to participate in something like this if it were offered outside of teaching time. Sounds way cool!