VTS: Week 5 Blog Assignment

I believe VTS will help a student, whom I’ll refer to as Sam, by engaging him in classroom discussions.  Sam is very withdrawn, misses school frequently, and physically shuts down when he feels overwhelmed or pressured.  I have established a positive rapport with Sam because he is in my Language Arts class and in my Advisory, but I feel like this rapport is dependent on my flexibility and lowering or removing the expectation for Sam to work independently.

During the first VTS session, Sam was engaged and seemed interested, but he did not participate in the group discussion.  After I concluded the session, he came to the front of the room and shared his observations and inferences with me privately.  I don’t think this is simply a case of shyness, because he was very comfortable presenting a project (that I helped him complete) in front of the class.  I believe Sam lacks confidence in his ability to learn, to the extent that he will literally retreat under a desk and refuse to move when he feels threatened in the learning environment.

I think VTS can help Sam by creating a sense of classroom community in a non-threatening way for him.  He almost participated in our first VTS by sharing his ideas with me, so I hope he will feel encouraged by the validation he received when he did share with me.  Instead of directing him back to his seat because we were finished, I listened to his observations, paraphrased, and responded neutrally, just as I did with others in the class discussion.  My intention was for him to feel as though he participated, in the hopes that he will share with the group next time.

My plan for our second lesson is to prepare Sam by letting him know earlier in the day that we will be doing another VTS in Advisory.  I want to encourage him by acknowledging his contributions to the last VTS (without mentioning that he only contributed privately, of course) and show my enthusiasm for the activity.  VTS offers an “even playing field” for students by removing the fear of giving a wrong answer or competition among peers, which is what I hope will help build Sam’s confidence.

VTS: Week 5 Peer Coaching #1

VTS Peer Coaching #1

Lori-

The inferences your students made about the image like, “digging for…oil, gold, clay, etc.” and the setting being Egypt “because the colors look like a desert” show background knowledge possibly learned in other content areas.  I think it’s great that they are making inferences and connections!

In response to them being surprised by your paraphrasing, I agree with you- I also think VTS will provide validation for students.  You made me think twice about how I respond to students’ answers in other activities/situations, and I admittedly move on when I receive a correct response.  Using paraphrasing in VTS should help teachers with this as well.  This will make me more cognizant of validating them through acknowledgement with other lessons.

You said students were “relatively engaged” but you did have them view silently before beginning.  Good job!  I had to reiterate the silent viewing with my seventh grade students also.  With more VTS experiences, I think our students will begin to do this without having to be prompted.  This is probably another learned behavior…the teacher puts something on the board, and they immediately start to talk about/question the activity.

I was really impressed with your response to the student who made the comment about the writing.  Whether his intention was to share his observation or to be inappropriate (I’m thinking this may have been an attempt to get a laugh from the others), but you handled it beautifully!

You mentioned the students talking over each other in your reflection and planning- I like the idea of silent hand signals.  An object, like talking stick, came to mind for me- something the student’s have to pass around to signal their turn.  This might not be allowed (for lack of a better word) in VTS; we could ask Mary for some insight.  It also may just take practice.  It sounds like your first lesson went very well!  Great job!

:) Ginia

VTS: Week 4 Blog Assignment

Assessing Student Engagement and Learning:

I prepared my Advisory students for the lesson by telling them I had an activity I wanted them to help me with for my Graduate work.  In my Language Arts classes, I have implemented “Connections to Art” with the novel we are reading, The Giver, so they knew the activity would have something to do with art.  As I loaded the image on the SmartBoard, students immediately began to center themselves to view the image.  At first, they began talking about it, so I asked them to view it silently for a few moments.  With a couple redirects, they did as I asked.  Before I could get the first question out, hands immediately went in the air.  Every student was looking at the image, and several wanted to comment immediately.  Students began with direct observations like, “I see boys concentrating on stacking cards.” When I asked “What do you see that makes you say that?” the response described their intent expressions.  I then asked, “What do you see that makes you say those are cards?”  The student responding looked at me sideways with an expression that read, “Come on, Ms. Gowin, are you kidding me?”  :) Moving forward, I knew my second question would be appropriate for them to explain less obvious interpretations.

As students responded (the same few at first, then others joined), the discussion gained momentum. Their observations became more interpretive with evidence.  For example, one student said, “The boys are brothers because they all have the same color hair and their cheeks are reddish.  You know what I mean, how some people’s cheeks always look red? That’s how they are.”  Then another student connected that response with, “They are brothers because they look different ages. If they were friends they would look the same age.”  Up to this point, only male students had volunteered to share in the discussion.  One female student raised her hand and said, “I think the youngest one is a girl because she looks like a girl with short hair to me.”  The others looked for a minute, and then nodded in agreement.

I noticed, during the discussion, that the students seemed to be making meaning as a group rather than individually.  When one student would correct himself, the others would nod in agreement.  I also noticed the students raising their hands right away at the beginning of the discussion, but as it continued they would listen to the person speaking, then wait for me to say, “What more can we find” before raising their hands.  This, for me, was evidence that they were listening to each other to make meaning.   All students were engaged in viewing, but they did not participate in the discussion.  What was interesting to me is that only one girl participated, with one observation about the smallest child in the picture being a girl, and to clarify when a student asked, “What’s in the cup? Are those flowers?” she said, “Yes, they’re forget-me-nots. I know that because I know what forget-me-nots look like and they’re blue.”  Did the girls feel less connected to the image because the group consensus was that the image was of boys playing?  Also, one student with an IEP only contributed once, but he and another student (this is the student with emotional/behavioral difficulties) came up to the front right after I wrapped up the discussion, and wanted to share their thinking only with me. They pointed at the image and began their own VTS.  Why did they not contribute during the group discussion?

Reflecting on Practice:  

I found it difficult to be the facilitator and not a participant.  In thinking about this, I realize it’s because, as a teacher, I am trained to “model, model, model.”  Especially at the onset of the discussion, I felt like my students expected me to lead them.  When someone would ask a yes or no question, like “Is that a doll?” I caught myself blurting out the answer.  I did begin asking the second question more specifically…”What do you see that makes you say they are brothers?” and students would answer with specific evidence.  It surprised me that I felt more pressure to help them think deeply and make meaning (although they were doing this) and I wanted them to enjoy VTS.  Fortunately, when I wrapped up, even though it was the end of the day and time to go home, they wanted to do another and asked if we could do this every day.  That alone, with seventh grade students, is a success!

Planning:

In the future, I am going to focus on stepping aside and being the facilitator rather than a participant. I had to force myself to do this, but I want it to come naturally.  I was so focused on the three questions, which I didn’t struggle with at all.  I’m much more comfortable in front of my students than I was when I did this with my VTS classmates and my professional peers, but in a way that made it more difficult for me to stand back and just facilitate.  I think this will come with intention and practice.

VTS: Week 3 Blog Assignment

Pre-VTS Assessments:

I want to preface this post by saying that I am grateful to and proud of the students who volunteered to complete this pre-VTS assessment for me.  They worked hard, took the activity seriously, and did not even ask the infamous question, "Is this for a grade?"  :)

What I noticed:  The responses given by my students in the pre-VTS assessments were very similar. Word counts were 59,64,68, and 83, but I noticed the student who wrote the most lengthy observation repeated his initial thoughts.  I found it interesting that each student made a total of 6 observations, which were almost all simple observation/assertions, with a couple detailed observations and interpretations/inferences w/out evidence.  One students did provide evidence for one of his/her interpretations/inferences. The following are examples from each student:

• "I see two men fishing in the ocean."
• "Two men have a bunch of fish caught on a net."
• "The water looks dirty. There's a barrel floating in the water."
• "You can tell it is a sunrise from the color of the sky."

Kinds of Thinking:  In considering the kinds of thinking discussed by Yenawine, my students are using simple identification.  Using the literacy development analogy, my students are in the "reading readiness" stage because they use concrete language without creating a narrative for the image. Although some of their descriptions were detailed, I did not see evidence of meaning-making in their observations.

Reflecting upon Housin's descriptions of Stage 1 & Stage 2:  I'm not sure my students' responses would be considered Stage 1: Accountive by the description in the reading because their observations did not include personal associations, but they certainly were not making judgments as described in Stage 2: Constructive.  I would classify the responses as observations (Stage 0?).

In doing my professional peer rehearsal, I felt the question, "What do you see that makes you say that?" was unnecessary.  But now, in reading my students' pre-VTS responses, I notice that is the one question of the three they consistently did not answer.  

What surprised me:  As a language teacher, I was pleased by the complete sentences and specific word choice students used to describe the image.  When responding to written narratives, their responses are not as detailed.  I know they are developmentally capable of responding at a more advanced stage, and I suspect they may have been thinking more deeply about the image, but they don't have experience responding to imagery in the written form, hence the literal responses.  I am interested to see if there is a significant difference in the verbal responses students will provide during the first VTS discussion.

VTS: Week 2 Blog Assignment

Professional Peer Feedback:

This week, during our team planning time, I conducted my peer practice VTS with the teachers on my 7th grade team.  I chose Winslow Homer's "Dad's Coming!" because I felt a little familiar with the artist since I incorporated some of his work in my Tom Sawyer unit lessons.  I have to admit, I felt  more awkward than when I practiced in class because this was my first group who were not at all familiar with VTS.  It was a little slow getting started, so I did begin by sharing my first idea as a viewer.  This did initiated the conversation, and it steadily grew from there.

My peers gave the following feedback:

• At first they did feel like this did not pertain to them, but gradually began to enjoy the activity and their overall impression was positive.
• VTS did encourage them to look at the image differently, more intently.
• They gradually formed a narrative about the image.
• They noted that my paraphrasing was a good way to model paraphrasing for students and build vocabulary.
• VTS helped build a community, rather than competition because they were building on what was previously said. 
• Other's comments guided their observations and helped them "see more".  
• One of the four teachers has experience viewing art, but was not familiar with this image or artist.  He said VTS made him look at the image and think about it more than he would have on his own.