I prepared my students before the video was
turned on. I told them we would be doing a VST lesson. I asked them to silently
look over the image on the screen for couple minutes. Then I turn on the video
and we started. As I called on my students they responded
with hands raised. My student engagement level was open and thoughtful. They
sat and thought out each piece of this artwork. Then they would ask one
question at a time, I loved that they listened to me this time. They started
with small surface items that were easy to find, then they got down in depth to
what was going on. They picked out the meaning of the books from the mouth of
the bird, to that of the books in the stomach. My students really went for “Why”.
They pulled out that each layer was a represented of layers of a person’s soul;
this is shown in the center of the bird. With the layers of nails on the
outside, it helps to protect the bird from the outside world.Reflecting on Practice:
After the video was turned off we talk about
the “why” this lesson is helpful and that it would help students to understand
art better over time. A student wanted to know why I said, “what I hear you
saying is”, I loved that they played off each other this time. All in all, I’m very happy with this
VST lesson today.
Planning:
Next time, I hope to pull more from my
students and show them they can understand that it’s okay to state their
opinion and they need to be awake. YES, my class is at 8am and for College student and they are not awake just yet. I’m still working on being comfortable in
the rewording back to my students, but I think that it will come in time.
Shirley,
ReplyDeleteSo to clarify, the class did a VTS of a video or was it an image from the video? Sounds like it was a good experience and interesting. Great to see that they were building off of each other and going beyond the surface treatment into the deeper meanings of the work. I will be doing my first VTS this week so it is helpful to learn from others. I also can relate to working on paraphrasing better.
Shirley,
ReplyDeleteAs your Peer Coach I also have a question about your use of video. Did you actually show your students a video, or was it a still image from a video? Or, do you mean that you videotaped yourself facilitating the VTS lesson? Either way, it looks like a very interesting choice of image for college art students. It sounds like their comments were thoughtful as they tried to make sense of the bird, books and nails around the sculpture. It's good to see, also, that your students seem to have "learned" how to VTS--by that I mean they are now listening to your questions and waiting to answer until called upon. Sometimes it seems that adults are worse than children when it comes to following that protocol. I do think that the more they listen to their classmates, the more they will have to say (if they are awake!) and bounce ideas off of one another. Even when we did VTS in our first class with Mary, listening to the comments of the rest of the class really made me see things that I hadn't seen or thought before.
You said that your students talked about why VTS would be helpful in understanding art over time--did they agree that yes, it was helpful and would give them better understanding over time? Also, did they like that you paraphrased their comments? Did that help the whole class with their understanding?
I'm sure it's quite different doing VTS with college students than with my 3rd graders, and probably harder to paraphrase and offer vocabulary because they are more sophisticated to begin with. But it sounds like you are coaxing them out of their inhibitions and getting them to share their observations without fear of being wrong. I'll be interested to read how your subsequent lessons go--and if your kids "wake up" to VTS! Keep up the good work!
I videotaped the class as I facilitating the VTS lesson.
ReplyDelete