Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)



Today, we had a special visitor, Hope Torrents, the School Programs Director of the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami.

Ms. Torrents spent some time learning the names of the students in the class.
Then, she projected an image on the screen and asked:

What is going on here?



The students began to comment on the piece.
After each comment she pointed at the parts of the painted the students referred to.
Then, she paraphrased what the students had said.

The next question aimed at expanding on the conversation:
What do you see that makes you think that?

The question further invited the students to add information based on their own perception. They used conditional language in order to leave room for other opinions.

Example:

Brice might be a hurricane fan. (the word might makes the sentence conditional)

Then, Kelly and Brice volunteered to facilitate the process again as they aded the same set of questions Hope had asked.  Under Hope's supervision, they were able to make it work.

Visual Thinking Strategies

The students learned they had been exposed to Visual Thinking Strategies, a research-based education nonprofit that believes thoughtful, facilitated discussion of art activates transformational learning accessible to all.

Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine are the co-founders of Visual Understanding in Education and the co-author of the VTS curriculum. Housen's research into the stages of aesthetic development provided the theoretical foundation for VTS. Her longitudinal research studies on the impact of VTS have shown that, in addition to growth in aesthetic understanding, VTS supports the growth of creative and critical thinking skills, which transfer to other subject areas. Yenawine, on the other hand, has been developing curricula and professional development that is used in hundreds of schools and institutions around the world since the early 1990s. Yenawine is the author of How to Look at Modern Art, Key Art Terms for Beginners, and has written six children’s books about art. His most recent book, Visual Thinking Strategies: Using Art to Deepen Learning Across School Disciplines, was published by Harvard Education Press in October 2013.  As Creative Director at Watershed Collaborative, Yenawine continues to work closely with teachers and inquiry-based learning.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 25, 2018 at 6:18 AM

    I really enjoyed hearing Ms. Torrents speak. She had a very interesting way of summarizing what each student said about the painting displayed. She really encouraged everyone to speak their opinion and set the classroom as a comfortable place to do so. As a finance major, my classes rarely do creative assignments like this, so it was a nice change. -Rae Rozovsky

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