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.

Week 9: Teacher's Choice Proposal

The Meeting
Pietro Longhi (Pietro Falca) (Italian, Venice 1701–1785 Venice)
Date: 1746
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 24 x 19 1/2 in. (61 x 49.5 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Samuel H. Kress, 1936
Accession Number: 36.16
Metropolitan Museum of Art

I chose this painting because next project Mary's students will be working on is mask-making, and I really wanted to find a work of art that referenced masks rather than a mask itself.  I thought this image would work well because the masks add an air of intrigue, and there is clearly some kind of narrative happening here which would allow students easy entry into the work.  I found it after watching this audio/visual (not really a video) here: http://www.metmuseum.org/connections/masks
The Connections section of the Met website is a great place to get ideas and think about big ideas and works of art that go along with them!

Week 8: VTS To Date.

I have seen a lot of change over the past couple months in the Unit C students.  In general, the students have always been eager to participate, but it seems like more of them have things to say and those who haven't talked as much in the past are starting to jump into the discussion more.  The students that were eager in the beginning seem to never put their hands down now.  I have seen some improvement in the quality of contributions to the discussions.  Every now and then they get a little hung up on agreeing or disagreeing with so-and-so, but they seem to be moving away from that now or at least beginning to all present different ideas, rather than bouncing back and forth between only two ideas.  Because we have limited time, I have never ended a discussion because it seemed like they didn't have anything else to say, only because our time has run out.  I am curious how it would go if we had all the time in the world.

I have also noticed that it has become much less necessary to use the second question.  Students are often offering evidence for their observations before I ask.  That I think is the strongest evidence of student learning. They are learning to support their arguments with evidence.  Students are also learning to piece together new ideas from what they learned from their classmates, and to help each other.  For instance, in a discussion of a photograph of Chuck Close that Mary lead, the students concluded that there was a self-portrait in the background, but the first student who noticed it wasn't sure why.  The next student said they agreed because he had similar facial features, and a third student said they also agreed because they were both wearing glasses.  I loved hearing them really building on each other's ideas like that.

The more I learn about and use VTS, the more impressed I am by the thought and research that has gone into the process.  I occasionally have questions about how it might work in different situations, but it always seems like that has already been thought of.  I feel completely at ease conducting a VTS session now, but I do still find myself stumbling over paraphrasing before asking the second question.  I seem to have developed a bad habit! I was really consciously working on it during my last session, so we'll see how that went when I get the video back. I am also still concerned about the students who have their hands up in the air before I even ask the first question and our time constraints.  I might like to try saying something like, "We only have enough time today for everyone to get one turn to talk, so please think carefully about what you would like to contribute to this discussion before you raise your hand." That might give students who don't usually talk a chance to contribute and encourage students to really think before blurting out something really obvious.

Blog #7: Conditional Teaching with VTS

Conditional teaching is not something that comes naturally, and is not something most people would think of when they think of teaching or teachers.  But I think maybe it should be. After just a brief introduction, conditional teaching seems like a no-brainer.  Ideas may be more easily transmuted and applied to other ideas when they are presented in an amorphous form.  

The creative process in the art classroom is especially susceptible to premature cognitive commitments.  Preconceived and closed ideas about what is "good" art, what art means and what art should look like may cause some students to perceive major barriers for their own creative process (i.e. "I can't draw.").  Art is a fluid, definition-defying subject, but if students develop rigid, absolute ideas about what a work of art is or means, they may become unable to expand those thoughts to encompass the true, multi-faceted nature of art.  If a student perceives technical skill and photorealism to be indicators of “good” art, then of course they will be quickly discouraged by their inability to create “good” art.

A student who is accustomed to being expected to provide a correct answer might also have difficulty engaging with art on a personal, meaningful level (i.e. “Just tell us the right answer.”)  But the instances when we actually know an artist’s intention in an artwork are few and far between, and the real function of that intention or the importance of that intention in viewing an artwork is arguable at best. The intention of the viewer is far more knowable.  Still, students who are used to being taught in absolutes may have difficulty trusting their own perceptions and experiences and how they affect their interpretation and interaction with an artwork.

VTS, through its acceptance of all ideas, use of conditional phrasing, and most importantly, the third question, "What more can we find?" can begin to tease out a student's greater understanding of what it means to engage with a work of art.  Students are encouraged along other lines of thought: “There is always something more to see, and other people might disagree with your ideas about what is going on.  That is perfectly acceptable.  Your ideas are just as valid.  Your contributions are just as valued.  Art is flexible and receptive.  Trust yourself and your abilities.”

Blog #6: Video 1, Assessing, Reflecting, and Planning.

Assessing

The students were mostly eager to participate in the discussion.  They all had their hands raised almost as soon as the image came up on the screen. I would like for them to really take the time to look before they start making decisions about what they would like to say because I think taking that time to look would really lead them past the listing kinds of observations into more meaningful observations.  At the same time, I am thrilled that they are so willing and excited to participate.

With this work, “The Tragedy” by Picasso, the students had a good mixture of listing and interpretation.  They noticed that the people had bare feet and were standing on a beach, and they noticed that both the date and the artist’s name were apparent on the painting.  Then they also made more meaningful interpretations, suggesting that the figures were stranded or poor.  One student suggested that the figures were praying because of their posture.  They also noticed that this painting highlights one of the abstraction techniques which they have been learning about, “unrealistic color.”

The students had a few interactions.  Most centered on some disagreement about the time of day depicted in the painting.  One student said night time, one said day, and another suggested sunrise.  The students also made connections with the observation of the unrealistic blue color and the mood of the painting concluding that something sad or unfortunate is occurring as if the figures were stranded or poor.

I think the students were applying some of the ideas they had previously discussed about abstraction techniques and it was good for them to see the technique of unrealistic color in action, and to see the way it affects the interpretation of the painting.  I observed them commenting on that unrealistic color of Picasso’s “Blue Period” and beginning to interpret how that color made them feel and how it made them see the figures in the painting as sad or somber.

Reflecting

I felt pretty good about this discussion.  It went much more smoothly than the discussion I led the week before about Rockwell’s triple self-portrait, and by comparing the two experiences, I learned just how important it is to choose the appropriate image.  “The Tragedy” seemed to be a perfect choice for these students.  They had a lot of interesting and various things to say about it and didn’t seem to get hung up on any particular aspect.

I am feeling very at ease with the VTS questions at this point and other than a couple of word jumbles, I think I used the questions as prescribed.  I have noticed recently though that I do not paraphrase the students’ responses before I ask the second question, I wait until after they have given me further clarification.  I feel like it would sound really repetitive, and waste a lot of time that we don’t often have to paraphrase what they say twice, but I know that’s part of the process so I will have to work on that.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear the students beginning to make deeper observations and interpretations.  In the past they had been doing a lot of listing.  I think this was a combination of having more practice at VTS and also the previous preparation for this specific kind of artwork these students had by discussing techniques of abstraction.

Planning

As I said, I need to remember to paraphrase before and after I ask the second question.  I would also like to work on encouraging the students to look quietly and thoroughly without thinking about what they want to say, waving their hands in the air.  I think that would help lead them to more thoughtful responses.  I think that will happen with more practice and self-awareness on my part.

Blog #5: Portrait of Possibility

My Portrait of Possibility is a 4^th grade girl who I will call Ashley.  I think VTS with be both a help and a challenge to her.  She had multiple great ideas to contribute to our VTS discussion of the Portrait of a Musician.  She noticed details about the instrument and the “formal” clothing of the musician.  I think she shows the potential to really grow in our VTS discussions, and that growth might help her in the artmaking portions of the class too.  She seems very spirited and has some trouble focusing.  I noted her bouncing around the room and was a little behind the rest of the class in the art process.  At one point she denied that her name was “Ashley” even though she was working on a project based on her name, “Ashley,” written largely across the page in front of her.  Luckily, I am not so easily fooled.

I think VTS will help develop her attention span as it grabs her attention with a work of art, but still requires her to sit quietly and contemplate.  This might help her better sit still and focus on her artwork.  I also think that looking at art will help her learn to value her own work and encourage her to concentrate and invest more time in it. I hope further VTS discussions will also encourage her to look more deeply past the obvious in the artworks and that I will be able to see her begin to notice more subtle details and meanings in the art.

Blog #4: Assessing, Reflecting, Planning.

The first VTS session I did at Ridgeway was with Thomas Hart Benton’s Portrait of a Musician, one of our paintings from the Museum of Art and Archaeology, which of course made this just a little more challenging for me.  These students had already done VTS with Mary before, and their hands were in the air before I had even begun my introduction.  Almost every student had something to say about this painting.  There was some discussion about what instrument the man is playing.  One student first suggested it was a guitar, then a violin, and then another student said he knew it was a bass.  He also told us that the musician was holding his bow incorrectly which he knew because he takes violin lessons.  Other students noticed the gradation of color in the background and on the instrument, and another suggested he was dressed for a performance because of his suit and tie.  They all seemed on point and focused on the painting. 

This discussion went very smoothly.  I felt very comfortable with the work and at ease with the VTS questions.  This was my first time doing VTS in a classroom rather than in the Museum galleries so that was a new experience for me.  It is hard to explain how it is different, but in some ways I think the students are more focused in the classroom, perhaps because they are in a familiar place and there aren’t a lot of other artworks around to distract them.  I also had never done VTS with that many students before, and as much as I wanted to call on each of them, it was hard for me to keep track of who had already spoken and who hadn’t.  When our time was up, there were still a lot of hands in the air, and I really hated not being able to hear what the other students had to say.  I would like to work on remembering who has talked already and make sure everyone has a chance to share their ideas.

Blog #1: Getting to Know My Class

The class I am working with for my VTS research is a  Unit C (4^th and 5^th grade) class at Ridgeway Elementary.  There are 24 students, 14 girls and 10 boys.  There are 11 5^th graders and 13 4^th graders.  I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time with this class in particular, but I almost always see a Unit C class when I visit for my field experience.  Because they are on a rotating ABC day schedule, it is always a different class, and seems to always happen to be not the class I’m really focusing on.  Anna is also working with one of the Unit C classes, so between Mary, Anna, and I, we make sure that all of the Unit C classes get the same VTS experiences so that our data will be relevant at the end of the semester.

My experiences of these classes is that they are all generally excited to be in the art classroom, and eager to work.  There seems to be two or three students in each class that have a hard time focusing, who talk all the time, or generally cause a ruckus, but even these students seem respectful and interested in the classwork.  There are also students who are very bright and meticulous.  I assume these students have always had art classes, but I’m not sure about how much art viewing they have done in the past. Mary has a great classroom with lots of posters of artwork from all over the world all around the room and I have done VTS almost every time I have visited, so I know they are getting a lot of it this year.

Blog #3: Pre-Assesments

Because Mary did the pre-assessment for me, I had already done VTS with these students and I was surprised at the vast difference between the discussion we had and what they had written.  In the classroom, it seemed like most students were eager to participate and had multiple well-grounded observations to contribute, but their pre-assessments did not represent this at all.  They seemed to be writing the bare minimum they thought they could get away with.  Many of them simply wrote some version of: "I see men fishing. They are in a boat with a net."
I am curious if their writing skills are on par with other 4th and 5th graders because I found their spelling and handwriting to be difficult to read at times.  It seems like they should know at this point to leave spaces in between words and be able to spell "boat" but most of them couldn't.

I saw many of Housen's characteristic, "ideosyncratic and imaginative" Stage 1 responses:
"war, because people don't wear metal hats when there fishing or doing something"
"also it looks like the first man is trying build something like hammering down a piece of wood, like there is a hole in the boat"
"I see a tiger with a dark coat I looks like it is triying to clime on the boat."

There was a wide range of word counts, from 13 to 70, but they were generally around the 25 word mark, and included 2 or 3 assertions.  I'm really curious to see how they improve at the end of the semester!

Blog #2: VTS with my professional peers

Because life around the museum is quite hectic at the moment, I decided to ask some of the docents to come participate in my VTS session with me.  I ended up with eight gracious and willing participants, and I chose to use William Paxton's The New Necklace as the image of our focus.

The docents are all avid art lovers and it wasn't difficult to start the discussion with them. I did not ask them to raise their hands before making remarks about the work, as I thought that they are adults and are capable of carrying on a civil conversation, but this made it difficult at times to really facilitate the discussion and to ask specifically the second question, but in general it went very smoothly.  Afterwards they also enthusiastically discussed the pros and cons (from their perspective) of VTS.  One noted that he felt like the VTS process draws him in more than just looking, and that it "forced [his] brain to start putting the pieces together."  Another noted that as art historians, we often talk "around" the paintings without ever really looking at the work, and valued VTS for encouraging that aspect.  Someone else really thought the group discussion was important because they could incorporate others' ideas with their own to come to conclusions. 

All agreed that they found the process somewhat frustrating though, as naturally at the end they all wanted more information, and I had not really done any research beforehand to be able to feed their appetite.  I should have known better!  But then they all also agreed that it is sometimes good to leave people "wanting more" and encouraging them to do more research on their own.  They also noted that VTS highlights the viewer's experience which is important, and sometimes overlooked by docents.

Finally, I thought it was interesting that they said that my restatements of their observations were not patronizing (yay!) and made it seem like I was participating in the discussion. I wondered if this was a good thing, or maybe meant that I was not being neutral enough.  These are people that I am pretty comfortable around, and I might have been a little less formal than is really necessary to be neutral.  I also know that on a couple of occasions I did sort of add to the second question saying, for instance, "What do you see that makes you say that this is the older sister?"  and wondered if this was an acceptable version of the question.  Because they were throwing out ideas so quickly, it felt necessary to clarify which ideas I was addressing, which goes back to my error in not asking them to raise their hands at the beginning.  It felt smooth and natural, and I think everyone found the process generally satisfactory.