VTS1: Summative Reflection Project.

Side/ Back / Front of Brochure

Inside fold out of brochure

4x6" Postcard

2x3.5" Business card

Here, I have created a set of documents that can be used to educate other teachers or administrators about the positive process and impacts of using VTS in the classroom. The brochure is the most informative, showing the history, explaining the purpose of the questions, what the teacher is doing simultaneously, data, and quotes from my students. The postcard is slightly less informative, listing the gist of the questions and positive impacts. I would envision this as something that I could give to other faculty members to show them what we are doing in art and why, and possibly entice them into trying the process themselves. The last item is a small business card that simply lists the three main questions. This card could be used to quickly pass out to students who are learning about the process or for facilitators to hold in their hands discretely while leading a discussion.

I tried to highlight the positive impacts about why it just makes sense to use VTS with students. All of the social, emotional, and academic influences. I feel like this is very important for arts advocacy, so that people realize we are supportive of our students growth beyond creating artwork. I hope that this helps other educators look at art educators in a higher light, and even want to integrate it into their own classrooms. I also hope that these can be used for administrators to understand the process that we are developing with our students, so they can understand the relevance of this system. It would also help administrators to advocate for the importance of keeping art classes in the public schools.

VTS1: Week 16 Blog Assignment.

Word Count

 

Technically, this is statistically significant. The average went from 25 to 31. However, I was disappointed to see that some students decreased in word count, or just barely improved. 

I believe this happened for a few reasons.
1) It was the Monday after Thanksgiving break, and they were not in working mode.
2) They were disappointed it was an image they had already seen, & didn't want to do it again.
3) Lots of our ELL or kids at a lower academic level dislike writing.
4) Students took three questions on the paper as a list they needed to complete one time. They made one statement, provided evidence, then mentioned one more thing they could find and thought they were done.
5) Students wrote more concise/coherent statements.

Interpretations with Evidence

I decided to look at how many times my students actually provided evidence for one of their interpretations. I noticed right away from our first VTS pre-test and discussion that students were making lots of interpretations. Even when students made a simple observation during a discussion, I really tried to make sure that I included the second question when possible. And, this is the most interesting part of VTS to me.  I noticed that some students would provide one or two reasons for their observations, which helped them become more concise. Usually, there would just be evidence for one of their observations on their written assessments. I think this was partially just because of the written form, and them feeling like all they were supposed to do is write one thing. I was much happier with how this went during our discussions.

But even in this written format, many students improved and as a class it was statistically significant again.

Pre/Post-Assessments

I am very proud of my kids. As mentioned, I have complete faith in their abilities, especially if we could VTS with them individually or in smaller groups. Small improvements are still improvements. We might take a little longer to make some of those improvements, but that's ok. The statistics show that there is in fact growth, even if on paper it's not as high as I would like it to be.  

VTS1: Week 15 Blog Assignment.

Preliminary VTS Findings

How have individual students grown?
I feel like VTS was successful in meeting my students where they were at. I felt like students were free to make their simple observations or inferences. Many of them did not supply evidence at first. I saw many individual students apply evidence, even if it was simple. EX: We went from "Two men fishing in a boat" to "Two men fishing in a boat because I see fish, a boat, and water." So, they are able to justify even their simplest of observations.

For students whose word count went down, I felt like they were actually becoming more coherent and concise. Students again went from listing to giving one coherent statement with evidence. Sadly, my class did not really continue to repeat the tree bullet points, just answered them and stopped.

How has your focus class grown?
Socially, this has helped my class agree and disagree with each other respectfully (at least when we are VTS-ing.) I also feel as though it has leveled the playing field for students to offer an opinion and join in group discussion, as I did see more and more students slowly start to participate. I believe I saw little bits of growth from each student from where they were starting. That means if they were just making simple inferences, they're more detailed. If they were making inferences, most are starting to provide evidence for at least one of those. As mentioned if they were listing, they now appear to make one solid coherent thought with evidence.

How have you as a teacher/practice grown?
This has helped me to really challenge students in breaking down their assumptions by asking for evidence. Even what would appear to be a very simple observation like "They are fishing" or "They are in the ocean" when asked, "What do you see that makes you say that?" Forces students to realize they have made an assumption and provide evidence for their opinion.

I feel very comfortable with this process now. I am more comfortable knowing when to paraphrase and move on, or finding a moment to introduce the second question. I have also become more comfortable introducing this process to my class, and dealing with curveball scenarios like a student being silly or listing many things at once. The classroom behaviors/management is still a challenge, but I try to remain calm through the chaos.

I also feel like it has helped me to understand my students better and have more evidence to advocate for their brilliance. In fact, I'll advocate for the fact that written assessments are really tough for my kiddos, and that I don't think this written assessment gives them the full credit they deserve. I also think group situations are difficult for them. I feel like if I could sit down with them individually or in small groups and facilitate this process, brilliance would pour out. But even if I am not literally doing that right now, it is reassuring to know that I have that faith in my students abilities because of this process.

VTS1: Week 14 Blog Assignment.

Portrait of Possibility Revisited
4th Grade, ELL Cluster Class, 50 minutes.

As mentioned before, "Student A" was one who was excited about looking at the images and noticed many things. This student has a personality that tends to cause distractions by talking out, or saying things that seemed slightly off. Whether this was a genuine statement or one that was meant to be stilly to gain attention was not quite clear.

Throughout our weeks practicing VTS, "Student A" is still one to notice many things. With his bold personality, I have been proud of how well this student and peers have been able to agree and disagree with each other respectfully (at least during the VTS discussions.) When we talk, even if (s)he appears off task for one minute, "Student A"  can hop right back into the discussion with many things to say.  Sadly, there are times when I think "Student A" might be trying to say silly things, because they will look at the class as if they are waiting for attention. Also, this student is one of the ones who likes to come right up to the picture and point out the many things they notice, to stand in front of the class and be the center of attention. Most of the not icings are acceptable, but occasionally they will throw in a curve ball to try and get a reaction from the class.

In my first blog post, I mentioned that if this behavior continued I would have a side conversation with them, which I have not. Instead, I tried to focus on the class as whole because we have multiple students with similar problems during VTS. I kept the expectations clear at the start of every lesson. I even started reminding them that they should only tell me one thing they notice at a time, to help limit those like "Student A" from a huge list of observations. I even made a poster to hang right next to the Smartboard with all of these reminders. Then, on our last discussion, I had to tell the class that they would go back to their seats if they were disrupting the class at the carpet. "Student A" was one student I had to send back to his seat for behavior problems. This was sad because I do think he is 100% capable of contributing to the conversation, just lacks the self control to participate appropriately. If the student said something that was potentially meant to be silly, I accepted it with the same neutrality, paraphrased very briefly, and moved on quickly. This seemed to stop it from getting out of hand most of the time.

Hopefully, I am predicting this student will have one of the longest post-assessments because of their tendency to be aware of so many details in an image. That keeps me hopeful to remember that this class, while very difficult with behavior issues during the process, is making connections and has the potential to say wonderful things...if we can just learn to sit still and speak one at a time.

VTS Week 13 Blog Assignment.

In Johnson's, "Differentiated Instruction Allows Students to Succeed" article I felt comfortable when he said that it was hard to do, because we want to initially treat all students the same. My target class has become full of different personalities, different language levels, and different academic levels. In this article Johnson states that the goal of differentiate instruction is to provide, "..."Learning activities that cater to the students' strengths but bring all of the students to the same learning objective." This forced me to go back to the very first day of VTS class and think, what is the simplest concise objective of VTS? (Especially for beginners) My answer would be for students to start reading visual texts, and providing evidence for their observations. For this objective, VTS is helping to meet my students where they are. Students who need to make rather simple observations can, but they can also provide me with evidence for what they are seeing to state that something is a flower or a tree. Students who are more advanced might be able to provide me with evidence about a potential narrative they have constructed in their minds.

Overall, VTS has also helped my students because of one obvious switch: We are looking at visual texts instead of traditional ones. This automatically provides imagery for us to discuss, which helps my ELL students who can recognize a flower, but might not recognize the english word for flower. Also, the audible discussion and association of english words with images should be helping ELL students build their vocabulary. As mentioned above, the different possibilities to say a blunt observation, or create a narrative out of ambiguity, have helped my students of different academic levels participate in the conversation while still working on our objective. In this class, there are lots of students who dislike each other and continual drama between peers. However during a VTS discussion, my students continue to be respectful with each other. Furthermore, more students who were once shy are now participating. So, the process seems to help foster their classroom community. The frustrating part is that once the discussion is over they go back to being disrespectful. I even mentioned this to my principal, and she suggested perhaps showing them a video of their discussion to show them that they CAN be respectful with each other, just like they were 10 minutes ago.

While reading these articles I kept thinking about how I could differentiate the process of this discussion to help my students behavior. So far, we have all been coming to sit together on the carpet in front of the smart board, and raising our hands to talk. Should students be in their seats, so they have more space and aren't annoyed by each other? (Then they may not see as well or I may not be able to manage as well.) Should I allow students to stand in the back if they feel like they would do better standing? Should I have a visual reminder as to who the speaker is, like the person holding the red ball is the only one who should be talking? What's so frustrating is that when I call on my students, they have brilliant things to say. But the process of sitting quietly, hands still, and not talking out of turn continues to be a behavioral challenge for them. So, am I missing differentiation in the process of a lesson that is already differentiated?

Peer Coaching 4.

Sadara,

You seemed very calm and comfortable in your own environment facilitating this discussion with your students. I was surprised at how long your students were willing to debate the time of day because of the light, a simple factor that got them thinking about artistic choices. Your students were very comfortable agreeing or disagreeing with each other and did so respectfully. There are a few students who kept commenting, noticing more details. For a moment in your video you comfortably ask if anyone else would speak other than the same students, saying not to be afraid. Another possibility is to say that you would like to hear from someone who hasn't talked yet today. It was nice to see that one student in particular was thinking as a stage two viewer noticing the artistic choice to have the pale skin of the woman right next to the dark shadow, making her the focal point. Also, I wouldn't worry about having to stop and talk to the student who was disrupting. He isn't in the class and you had to explain something special was going on and that he should be silent. No big deal, it had to be done! It was good that you apologized to the speaker for a moment to take a break to do that, then continued on like normal. I agree that this image was an appropriate choice for your class. It had concrete observable things for your students to make observations about, left ambiguity for plenty of agreeing/disagreeing, and still had opportunities for people to start considering artistic choices. Well done!

VTS1: Week 12 Blog Assignment.

Reflecting on Yenawine’s recommendations for image selection, was your Teacher’s Choice image an appropriate choice for your students, considering their age, stage, interests, and needs at this time? Explain why or why not.

• Accessibility- Yes, there were many recognizable objects for them to grasp, which was good for some of my lower level students who still need to make blunt observations about what they see.
• Expressive content- Yes, we had many interpretations of what could have possibly been going on to make the figure's body in this position.
• Narrative- Somewhat, students were again wondering why the figure's body would be in that position, and what the relationship between the male and female was.
• Diversity- Somewhat, the figures weren't as diverse as the ones we had previously looked at. The students noticed how the figures were very pale. I thought they might mention how the woman's dress might appear from an older time period, but it didn't come up. 
• Realism- Somewhat, the figure's positions were so abnormal that it was the focus of our conversation. However, there were recognizable objects which made it more accessible. It was a bit more surreal, which I thought might be a good push for them, but might be a little too soon when we need more of a narrative.
• Series/themes- I continued the theme of people doing things in a room, but instead of one person or a family it was focused on a couple, which might have been too distracting for the kids.
• Media- This was a painting, as I was hoping we might push into some stage two thinking about artistic choices, but we didn't discuss many of them.

 In what ways did the image challenge them?  Was the challenge too great, too little, just right? What did you observe that makes you say that?

The image seemed to challenge the students because for the first time, there was something heavily abstract about the image we were looking at. This caused them to wonder what was going on to make the figure's body so disproportionate/ out of normal position. While I was hoping this might push them into some stage two thinking, they were still looking for a blunt narrative, as I expected. For example, there were statements made like: He is doing a flip, he is a ghost, he is a vampire, they are on the moon. So in that sense, it was interesting to see them come up with possible explanations. This was enhanced by the figure's pale colors. There were a few deeper statements like "I think he's trying to be in a relationship with her."

What features/aspects of the work of art and its narrative did the students notice? What intrigued them?

As suspected with 4th grade students, this image got an immediate reaction of, "EWWWWWW" because of "the kiss." That was our first comment, and thankfully we moved beyond it as the male's position became more interesting since it was so abnormal. We even had a student disagree about the fact that they were kissing. How the bodies were so contorted became the main focus of the discussion. 

 What opportunities for SCAFFOLDING did this image provide? How did you and/or students address and support those during the VTS discussion?

Based on our previous images, the students had been telling me what they saw people doing in certain rooms. Sometimes, there would be a narrative made between the people we were looking at. So, this one provided us with a view into work that is a bit more abstract. I'm hoping that that can get them thinking about artist's intent, and having to think beyond what they're literally seeing. It was good for them to still have opportunities to tell me their blunt observations, but still be challenged to think of WHY something was made to look not normal. I am hoping that will open doors for people to start thinking that the artist made a choice for a reason. Whenever students agrees or disagree with something a student says, there is usually solid evidence to support it. That shows me they are looking for concrete evidence and finding many details to support a certain theory. Also that they are listening to each other, and learning to take in other people's opinions. 

Were there any surprises?

MORE KIDS TALKED THIS TIME. BAM. I was so excited that some of my ELL kids joined in on the conversation. They felt comfortable to disagree, and gave evidence why. Not all ELL kids are talking yet, but we are getting there. I was surprised that we didn't talk about more details in the image, and so much of it revolved around the people. 

Would you use this image again with a similar class of students?  Explain.

II think it was fine, but could have been better. I would avoid the whole kissing "EW" scenario and just pick something that involves kids so they better relate to it. I would also look for something that has a lot of potential or clear clues for a narrative. I think that's what they're really excited about. I was jealous of some people's Norman Rockwell paintings, so I would look into some of those in the future possibly. I would also be interested to see my students VTS a photograph, especially one that has a sense of production, almost like a film still. Darn,  now I'm thinking of some other good artists...