Summative Reflection

Here is my final project!

This idea stemmed from the fact that when and if anything went wrong in my VTS discussions, upon reflection, there was always a glaringly obvious reason for it.  I learned from those mistakes, and have synthesized them and their solutions in this flowchart.  I hope you can click on it to zoom in and read the text!

Week 15: Statistically Significant

Word Count:

Conditional Language:

For word count, the difference is considered to be extremely statistically significant!  For conditional language, the difference is also considered statistically significant.  Again, I have trouble to with the written formatting of these assessments because the students' progress is much more evident to me than it is looking at what the students have written, but even so the proof is in the pudding, or statistics.  I have seen amazing progress in the Unit C students this semester and to me the increased use of conditional language is most apparent.

As the statistics show, the students have generally grown over the semester.  I was surprised that the calculations came out the way they did, however, because there were a handful of students who wrote less the first time around.  They were all students who had fairly low word counts to begin with though, and many of the students who wrote more wrote drastically more, tipping the scales a bit.  Some of the best examples of increase in word count are 23 to 94, 13 to 82, 52 to 172, and 39 to 136.  I believe in VTS, but I can hardly believe these amazing results.

Some of the most interesting responses include:

"Two guys that are in war getting food when they gotten away from war to be safe...They both have bombing helmets on and a whole fish on a net so they can have food... I can see four towers and right in front of the boat an orange gas tank."

"A big storm is happening while the fishing and there probaly in the middle of noware and they probaly lost the bukket full of worms to catch worms or a bucket of water to drink."

"It looks like it is a picture done with pastel because of the smootheness of the colors and the way the colors blend into each other.  It looks like the sun is coming from the right side of the picture because there is a shimmer on the right side and shadows on the left."

"I see a blue type liqwid. It looks like water. I think that because it is wavy and of course blue."

Clearly the vast majority of the students show dramatic improvement with only a very short period of VTS.  I have seen the students grown in the discussions, and the assessments also demonstrate that growth.  They see more, use more conditional language and often support their ideas with evidence.

As a teacher, I have grown most, I think, in comfort which is a big thing to me.  In the past, I felt more comfortable talking to a group of academics than I did with school-aged kids.  I think I would be equally comfortable now, and I can't wait for the museum to re-open so I can facilitate more VTS learning experiences with a variety of groups.  This semester as my first in art education has been so enlightening as a whole that it is difficult to pinpoint what is a precise effect of VTS but it has been an important part of my own growth and change.

Week 14: Portrait of Possibility Revisited

In Week 5 I identified "Ashley" as my portrait of possibility. Unfortunately, I have not happened to be in the classroom recently with Ashley's class so I don't have a lot of recent information to compare with my initial analysis.  Her pre- and post-assessments do not show any improvement.  She went from a word count of 19 on her pre-assessment to 13 on her post-assessment.  She seems to have some trouble writing, so I wonder if her briefness has more to do with that than a lack of interest in the artwork.  I have, however, also noticed that among some students there is an almost frantic need to be done, or done first that seems to cause a serious lack of concern for care about the quality of the end product, and I suspect that might also be at play here.

I did get to observe Mary conduct VTS one week with her class and I wrote some observations down that week.  "Ashley" had her hand up for the ENTIRE length of the discussion.  She had her hand up before Mary even answered the first question, and when Mary called on her her comment was, "There's a guy."  Mary said, "What do you see that makes you say that this is a male?"
"Because he has a beard."

It was hard for me not to think, "Really?  That's what you were so desperate to contribute?!"
The students had quite a bit of discussion about whether the photograph in the background was of the same person that is painting the picture.  "Ashley" added, "I see his glasses in the portrait."
Mary called on her several times because as I said, her hand was up the whole time as if she had this burning idea, but her later contributions were only to state that she agreed or disagreed with so-and-so.  I found this frustrating and somewhat confusing and I wished I could spend more time talking with her.  She is clearly thinking about the art and is eager to participate in the conversation. I wonder if she is just so desperate for the attention that she can't pause to think about what she is going to say. Her responses I discussed in Week 5 show she's capable of deeper looking.  I think she needs more time to react to the VTS "treatment" to show development and growth and I am curious to see how that plays out.

Week 13: VTS through a Differentiated Lens

Differentiation through VTS is easy. The most difficult part is making sure that all students have the opportunity to participate in the discussion and that students are respectful.  VTS allows students to use their own brains to the best of their ability, and whatever they have to contribute is valued and accepted.  In general, the Unit C students have become more and more willing to participate and to contribute thoughtful observations rather than flippant ones because they know that I will receive their ideas and honor them.  While the art viewing is really a critical part of VTS, I have come to realize that there is a huge benefit to simply taking the time to let students talk and listening carefully to what they have to say.

Over the course of a discussion in their classroom, there are often a wide range of comments from listing and naming feature of the painting, which usually build into more insightful comments that begin to construct a narrative.  This demonstrates that differentiation that allows students to begin their conversation at a lower level and begin to contribute more when they feel comfortable.  There are a few students who seem to consistently contribute at the beginning with more basic observations and don't participate as much toward the end of the discussion.  They may not be ready to dive as deeply into a work of art, but by listening to their classmates, they are challenged to start thinking about what more can be found in a work.

Week 12: Assessing, Reflecting, Planning, and Scaffolding

I think this was a really great image to use with students.  There are multiple narratives that could be created through this image, and the students seemed very interested in determining what was going on here.  I think it generally fits Yenawine's description of appropriate images for beginning viewers, being overtly narrative, realistic, and accessible.  The only potential problem with this work is that the generally accepted scholarly interpretation of this work is that the man in blue and the woman in yellow are planning a secret rendezvous at the theater, so if students decided to further research this work it might cause some problems, but even the Met page that describes it doesn't go into much detail.  There is no blatant evidence of this in the work itself.  

The students generally agreed that this was possibly a scene from a masquerade ball or a play, but they were thinking very hard about what is actually happening in this scene and who these people are.  They all had a lot of different things to say about this image instead of repeating and agreeing or disagreeing with each other.  Some students suggested the figures were sitting at the side of the room resting while the dance was going on, another suggested they were in a princess's bedroom, and one student suggested they were on a stage performing a scene in which a masquerade ball was taking place.

Unfortunately, the background of the image didn't project well, but this resulted in one of the most exciting parts of the discussion for me. The students could only see a hint of the sort of post and lintel structure suggested in the architecture, so there was a lot of discussion about where the figures were.  One student suggested it was the princess's bed, another a window, one student suggested there was a framed painting there, and yet another student suggested it was a fireplace.  Instead of being stuck on whether they agreed or disagreed with one particular student's interpretations, they were building a list of multiple possibilities.

The point of choosing this image was to connect to the mask project that the students were starting, but there wasn't a lot of discussion of the masks themselves.  I would use this image again, but I might try to steer the discussion more toward the masks so that I would be more able to scaffold in ideas and vocabulary that would be relevant to their artmaking.

Week 10: Video 2, Assessing, Reflecting, Planning.

Duilio, Barnabè
(Italian, 1914-1961)
La Serveuse
ca. 1960
Oil on canvas
(86.66)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. George Schriever

University of Missouri Museum of Art and Archaeology

Assessing
The students were ready and willing to participate in the discussion as always. There were several more basic observations that there was a woman holding a tray.  One student suggested there was a chip on the  I heard a lot more conditional language this time around, for instance the student who speaks first say, "I think it's a woman holding a tray" and goes on to say that it looks like she's wearing a dress, "kind of."  Other students also begin their observations with "I think" which I think demonstrates a big shift in the discussion.  Another student says, "I think she could be holding a pear on a tray or a hat" demonstrating their flexible thinking and questioning about different interpretations of the artwork.  Because they had already been over the techniques of abstraction before, they were prepared to notice more about the techniques used in this painting as well, describing the geometric fracturing and color variances across the figure.  They noticed that the figure was divided vertically and had a lot of the questions about what that division might mean.  They agreed and disagreed with each other on this element in particular.  Some suggested that it was two people that might be of opposite sexes and possibly different races fused into one while another student suggested that it was shadows and light that created the different tonalities on the face.  They were generally respectful.

I did not really vary the questions much except to specify, "What do you say that makes you say that this might be a hat?" etc.  Similarly to what I said with video 1, I think this was a good opportunity for students to apply what they had been learning about abstracted portraits.  While they didn't mention fracturing or unrealistic color in this discussion, some of the students did discuss the differences in color throughout the figure and noticed the emphasized geometric shapes. This gave them another example of an abstracted portrait to pack away with the other information they learned about abstraction and what it looks like.

Reflecting
I felt a little awkward with this discussion, but I'm not sure why.  It might have been because this is a work from the Museum that I am more familiar with and I may have felt a little uneasy letting go of the standard interpretations.  The first student who suggested that the figure was two different people caught me a little off guard and I think I need work on my comfort with talking about socially sensitive topics like race and gender.  I felt at ease with the VTS questions and practices pretty quickly, but I think it will be more difficult for me to begin altering the questions as I'm in the groove!  I also continue to skip over paraphrasing between the first and second questions but it doesn't seem to make too much of a difference either way.

Planning
I need to focus specifically on altering the questions.  Again I need to remember to paraphrase first before asking the second question, and I would also like to work on my posture.  I need to work on being more mindful of my actions and remind myself of what I'm working on right before I start a discussion so these things are fresh in my mind.

Blog 11: VTS and the Common Core

It is truly amazing how well VTS meets each of the Common Core State Standards for Speaking and Listening:

Comprehension and Collaboration
1. Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
This is really the heart of a VTS discussion.  Students participate in a conversation about a work of art with all of their classmates.  They are invited to agree or disagree respectfully with each other to develop and express their own opinions.

2. Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
As we've often discussed, our students are not afforded the opportunities to view art in the classroom often enough.  VTS is a vehicle for doing so, and here the Common Core is calling for teachers to specifically offer these opportunities.  The importance of teaching students to "integrate and evaluate" information visually is critically important in the world today as visual literacy becomes a more and more essential skill for functioning in our media-laden society.

3. Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.
As I said before, by inviting students to agree or disagree with their classmates, but asking them to do so respectfully during a VTS discussion, we create a safe environment for them to begin considering their thoughts on the validity of other's ideas.

Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
4. Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
The second VTS question, "What do you see that makes you say that?" is the one that really addresses this standard.  By asking this question, we are asking students to ground their thoughts and ideas in the material that has been presented to them.  By holding VTS discussions often, and continuing to ask this question, we develop a habitin our students of supporting their ideas with evidence to the point that asking this question becomes unnecessary because they do it automatically.  It seems pretty clear that this habit would then spill into other discussions and assignments.

5. Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.
 As an art historian, I would argue that a work of art is its own form of visual data, and VTS discussions encourage students to consider them that way as well. Students could easily extend these skills to find works of art that display information that supports their ideas in history, literature, or other humanities, or begin to consider how graphics might express information or enhance understanding.

6. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.
VTS discussions offer students the opportunity to speak about their thoughts and ideas in a way that they might not often have the opportunity to do in their regular classrooms.  VTS asks them to think carefully and communicate their ideas and thoughts with others.  Speaking in front of others is something that takes practice and class discussions require that students do so.

Clearly, VTS meets all of the Common Core Standards, mostly clearly and completely.  In order to incorporate technologies organically and authentically, I might leave up an image over the course of the class session, and offer students (assuming they have access to smart devices) the opportunity to continue the discussion via a platform like www.todaysmeet.com.  This could allow students who don't feel comfortable talking out during the discussion the opportunity to still share his or her thoughts through a sort of text message. It would also encourage students to continue thinking about the discussion and the work of art beyond the context of the initial discussion.