VTS week 15

Synthesize/Summarize the preliminary findings : Here is all the formal information:

Paired t test results

P value and statistical significance: The two-tailed P value equals 0.1632 By conventional criteria, this difference is considered to be not statistically significant. Confidence interval: The mean of Group One minus Group Two equals -7.40 95% confidence interval of this difference: From -18.08 to 3.28 Intermediate values used in calculations: t = 1.4506 df = 19 standard error of difference = 5.101 Learn more: GraphPad's web site includes portions of the manual for GraphPad Prism that can help you learn statistics. First, review the meaning of P values and confidence intervals. Then learn how to interpret results from an unpaired or paired t test. These links include GraphPad's popular analysis checklists. Review your data:

Group	Group One	Group Two
Mean	44.10	50.95
SD	29.99	16.14
SEM	6.54	3.61
N	21	20

I think that overall even if the data did not prove to be statistically significant, I know my kids showed a lot of growth. If we could have scribed for our students and just let them talk it all out, I guarantee there would have been a whole lot of growth that was "statistically significant."

• How have individual students grown/changed over the course of their short VTS experience?  I can see the change in many of my students, but it did not always come out in their writing. The change can be see in their willingness to join in the discussion about a piece, their use of new vocabulary. It became evident that many would see something a peer had pointed out, and then change their mind about what was happening in the piece of art.
 
• How has your focus class grown/changed over the course of their short VTS experience?  My focus class has changed in the way they approach making art, they seem to be more thoughtful art makers. They ask more questions about their own art and others. They are discussing their creations in the group a lot more. They have also become overall more thoughtful art speakers.
 
• How have you as a teacher and your teaching practice grown/changed over the course of the semester? My practice has grown in the simple fact that my students have far surpassed my expectations. They have shown me that they are fantastic as discussing art. I think the way I ask questions and the way I present information has also changed. I feel I am much clearer when presenting things to the kids, and they seem to understand better as well. I am excited to see what more VTS practice will do for my kids.

VTS Final project

Here is the link to my final presentation for VTS
Enjoy :)

http://youtu.be/SYxFaQcu_5g

VTS 1 Week 14

Portrait of Possibility Revisited

Well, My story-teller friend moved at about week 8 :( It was hard to see much growth, but I really feel like this opened up a new avenue of communication for him. He was great verbally, but not written, and I think he would have become great with the written side as well with more practice. My hope was that this would help his peers understand him better, but he really struggled with focus factor on a few of the last vts sessions he was with me for. I still feel with more time his communication with his peers would have developed as well.

Mr. Self Confidence.
In some ways his self confidence did go up a bit, he is more willing to speak out and give responses especially during VTS sessions. The only thing is, he typically is repeating what someone else says and doesn't not seem to be able to voice an opinion of his own, he also has a hard time providing the evidence for his opinion during VTS. I'm not so sure that my plan is successful... YET- I still have hope that VTS will do great things for his self confidence.

Scaffolding and differentiation-
I think that VTS would be great in both areas for both of my boys. They need to build the language and schema for art. I also feel that VTS adapts itself to both thought processes- One very backwards way of thought and the other of not thinking for himself. I think VTS gave Mr. Story-teller the ability to explain himself in a way that others could better understand, While it is still working on helping Mr. Self Confidence learn to support his answers, and eventually he will be able to speak his own opinion.

 

VTS 1 Week 13

DI- another lovely buzz word! This was actually brought up at my evaluation the other day... They would like to see me challenge some of my students more... My first thought was , "Are you mad, I have 560 students, when do I have time to create all those different things?!?!?"  So I have been thinking on this a lot and was extremely excited to see it was the topic for week 14 :)

DI-with VTS- woo! Way to kill two birds with one stone!
To me VTS gives all of my different thinkers the ability to think on their level, but also be a part of the thought processes of students who are on high levels of thought. My focus group does not contain a large spectrum of learning levels, only about 4. But I am happy to see that some of my basic thinkers are able to listen to their peers (especially the high leveled peers) and begin to understand what they are thinking. They are also actively participating and connecting to these ideas. What a great example for these basic thinkers to have.
For example- I have a student, student S, and she rarely participates in the discussions, she only wrote 2 sentences for her pre/post vts assessments. Basically she does the bare minimum to get by and tries to fly under the radar and not get noticed. Then there is student C, she is a very high level thinker. When she responds to the questions, and usually has more than one response to provide for each vts session, she has a well thought out answer with a lot of evidence of  her thinking. She is also a very outside of the box thinking, high achiever, and for the pre/post vts writing assessments, she practically filled both pages. Well during one of my first lessons I was VTSing this image:
http://vtsweb.org/lessons/g301#
sorry could only copy a short cut, but it is from VTS curricula, Grade 3-5 first year, lesson 1, the image of a person lying in bed.
So student C gives her opinion of the image, and one of the things she points out was the photos on the wall, and the dresser. She believes that the 2 photos on the wall are the girl in the beds grandparents. Then the picture on the dresser is the girls husband. She explains ow this is her mother taking care of her and that she is sick. and that the little boy by the foot of the bed is her son. Then all of sudden student S raisers her hand and says I agree with student C, but I don't think the girl in the bed is sick, maybe her husband died and she is sad in bed. That would make sense for the mother to take care of her and her son to want to be with her too. I have to say, I really don't think student S would have been able to come up with that answer, without student C helping her connect some of the dots.
Another example would be when I decided to VTS with my first grade students for the first time... during the end of a class that I was being evaluated for... why I thought this was a good idea, i don't know, but at least it didn't totally train wreck. I will add my image that we VTSed latter, it's on my work computer.
But the basic overview was a painting of 3 Native American men on horses, but the horses were just standing in the middle of the water. The first few kids simply listed off things they were seeing, but then one students say he thought that the Indians were heading home and maybe got lost, when I asked him to provide evidence he said because they all seem to be looking in one directions like they thought home was that way, but that he thought they were lost because it didn't make sense that they were just standing in the middle of water. This totally opened up our discussion, tons of hands shot up... the next one said no they are hunting, see his spear in his hand, and they must be looking at an animal over there, and I think the horse is helping them, because he is looking down at the fish swimming around his feet. At that point the possibilities kept growing, but it took a high level thinking to show some of the others that there was a possible story in the painting, not just things.

I'm still working on the whole DI idea, because to me I was differentiating my instruction all the time to all the kids, I had not been making things more challenging for my students who needed it. I think my biggest problem here is time. My class is only 50 minutes, and getting around to everyone at least once is difficult because I have a lot of students who seem to struggle with taking steps without my opinion. "mrs. schotte does this look okay, is this right, like this?"  and I am trying so hard to break them of this need, but wow they are really consistent with this need. I think my 5th graders are the worst, maybe it's their developmental stage, but it can really cause trouble with me making it around to help all my students. I would love any suggestions you might have. I feel like my students are not quit self sufficient enough for me to really be able to push some of them (without great help and explanation)?

 

 

VTS 1 Week 12

Scaffolding- Wow how had I forgot about this education technique (buzz word)! We do all of these things, but I definitely liked the tie to the idea of vocabulary. In the movie, he was able to use that vocabulary word "palette" to help aide in the students knowledge and discussion. When I first started VTS I was afraid to do this, now I have tried to be better about using this conditional language and vocabulary with the hopes that it rubs off on their brains!

Here is the link to my last VTS session with my 4th graders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4amcXpUTgc

I used my teacher's choice image from weeks 9 & 11. Overall it went very well. I have noticed that they seem to be getting burned out on VTSing so frequently, so there were so cheers as I told them this was the last time I would be video taping and that we would soon be slowing down on the frequency of VTS. I feel bad for not spending as much time, but we don't have a lot of art making time, and that what they really enjoy doing. A few new kiddos chimed in on this lesson, I think it is simply based on interest in the piece, and others that usually have great input were quiet.
*On a side note, my little story telling friend from this group moved a few weeks ago, and I wish we could have VTSed this image before he moved. I bet he would have had a great narrative!
I still feel that this image was appropriate for my students, considering their learning stage. I do however feel it would have suited better to use during my "Chinese New Year" unit. I think the biggest challenge for them was the idea of weather or not the dragons were alive. They kept getting stuck and respectfully arguing why they thought it was a parade or not. Unfortunately this led to a lot of repeated ideas. I do feel that this repetition of ideas did act as a scaffolding for myself and the students, repeating the ideas, the pause and review, as well as repeatedly pointing out specific details.
I really enjoyed VTSing the image and I'm interested in using with 3rd grade as well during our Chinese new year unit.
We VTSed our image at the end of class, so that had to clean up a few minutes early. I think that this changed some of their attitudes and focus ability. This class seems to do much better at the beginning of class.

VTS 1 Week 11

I really enjoyed the article about the 5 different stages, it's funny because I can totally categorize each stage to fit a different age group of students. I find it interesting that my students are still very much in stage 1-Accountive- list makers, but I have been seeing glimpses of stage 2-Constructive- relating to their schema. The image below is what I used for my 4th graders and it was interesting so see how they used their schema from the past when we studied Chinese new year.


The Dragon Leaps Around in the Grand Occasion

By Zhang Qing-Yi

This what I used for my teacher's choice. As I had discussed in Week 10, I picked this knowing that it has a lot going on in the picture. I also knew their schema might come in handy. They are at stage 1 as they list all the different things, but they moved to stage 2 as they tried to explain what was happening with the people and the dragons, resorting to their schema about the Chinese New Year.
We are currently finishing up our aboriginal art unit, and I really think this will give my students a different style/culture of art to view and discuss. My concern is that as they tend to do, they will get stuck on two different ideas and argue them to death. I know that the intrigue of dragons will pull in some of my quiet boys .

 

 

VTS 1 Week 10

Lesson 4- I choose (with Mary's help-thank you) two images that related to the project my group was about to start.

After we VTSed these images we then read an article about the Australian Aboriginal Artists. They are making dot styled aboriginal art :) 

Here is the link to my video
http://youtu.be/wriGJSxEsKw

Assessing, Reflecting, and Planning

Student Engagement- I had 19 out of the 24 kids in the class respond, with 35 total responses. Still working on getting a few quiet ones to join in the conversation. Today they seemed less focused on their vts responses. My story telling friend who is usually very involved, was distracted, at one point he was playing with cups that were on his table and I had to take them away. You can here him drumming with pencils so I called on him, which helped, but he was not wanting to pay attention. This was the 4 day I had VTSed this image, they are usually the first group to VTS an image, and I was disappointed with the fact that this group had a few different ideas, but my other groups did not get bogged down by repeating the same ideas over and over. With the first image, they were very convinced that the people in the picture were making a rug, and what it's purpose was. The second image they were able to come up with many different ideas. It was interesting that they kept thinking the images were related, that one was in preparation for the other. Ideas such as location of Africa, or the beach were discussed, tools and materials, what was in the backpack, and even the fact that the woman looked poor to one child, but not to another. I really enjoy the way the kids connect to one another's ideas, and the politely disagree and then can provide evidence why. I am not seeing conditional language or flexible thinking yet... Should I be?!?!  I was not great a varying my questions. I think kids are learning to connect and slowing some are even building off each others ideas, this became very evident with a few and they would say, "I agree with (child's name) because.... And I think....."

Reflective Practice- The VTS lesson has gotten very comfortable, in fact as I watched myself, I feel like it maybe getting too comfortable. I have to admit, I was sick that day, and went home from work an hour later. I noticed a sense of rush and unfocused about myself as a result of how I was feeling. I need to force myself to give better wait time, talk slower and more clearly, give some wait time between the child's response and mine (more time to think through my thoughts). I do feel like my paraphrasing is getting better as I'm getting more comfortable with the process. I think I just need to spend more time mentally preparing for each image.

Planning- For the future, I need to practice my wait time. I also want to practice slowing myself down in my responses. As I said earlier, I need to find the time to be more mentally prepared for these images. Overall I am excited every day that I VTS, it is excellent to see this side of my students!

VTS 1 Week 9

Week 9-Teacher's choice proposal

I was looking through the different options of "Saint George and the dragon" I ran into what I hope is a great choice:

 

 The Dragon Leaps Around in the Grand Occasion

 By Zhang Qing-Yi

 

link https://www.orientaloutpost.com/proddetail.php?prod=2fa-dragondance&cat=8&nl=y

 

I plan on VTSing this with my 4th grade group! I have 24-26 kiddos depending on the day they visit. They are fairly well rehearsed in VTSing as well. I thought this might intrigue my quieter boys. I really like the movement and the different characters. I feel like there are so many different things happening in the art work that we will have plenty to VTS about for the full time.

Let me know what you all think.

VTS Week 8

It's always interesting to watch someone else VTS. This teacher did a great job of paraphrasing, gesturing and making connections to what others had said. I thought it was interesting that he never used Q3 and that he asked the questions in his own terms. I like that when he was trying to remember everything, he was willing to go back and check with a student to make sure he didn't miss what they were saying. Also, He offered up Frida Kohlo's name, and i'm pretty sure the student did not remember her name. I feel like this gave the kids more information than they needed.

VTS of Lesson 3 Image 1

This week I did the image above with my 4th graders. This week seemed harder, almost as if they are getting sick of having to do this. I still have the same kids getting engaged, and the same kids are silent. Not wanting to push them out of their comfort zone, I don't want to call on them if their hand is not up, but I think our next VTS lesson is going to be this way. I liked Mary's suggestion that I should call on those kids first so that the answers haven't been said. Those who are getting involved are doing a great job of developing thier answers. They seem to get stuck on two ideas: the idea of sick kid with a mom taking care of her, and the idea of whether they were at school or daycare.

 

I was proud that I was really good at the point of my finger comes, "what more can we find, (student)".   I remembered to add this with every child's name I said. My focus for this lesson was always using Q3 and paraphrasing. I felt more comfortable with my ability to paraphrase this time :) I am in search of an image that will suit these kids and fit into our next project, I feel like they are getting board with the images we've been using. Maybe we need to spice things up a bit.

I also took the leap to VTS 1st grade. I selected an image from our print curriculum and we VTS'ed it!!!!!
It literally just occurred to me that there is so much more to see in this image, but my projector is so dark we are missing more than I realized! Guess I need to find the Brighten and contrast buttons.
So, It went really well with the first group. I explained that we were going to VTS and image, what that meant and that we were going to spend more time looking at art from now on, not just making it. So I rolled right into the sessions, and they were fantastic :)  I was very pleased, we went for 15 minutes and I had to stop them so that we could work on our assignment. I noticed with the younger ones I have to keep them aware that we are only sharing one at a time. I have VTS'ed this image with 3 more 1st grade groups. Day 2 was a train wreck, because my blind student was at the back of the room reading a book and it was super distracting for me and the kids. I had a hard time hearing the kids and was not able to paraphrase as well. I hate to ask them to leave, but next time I am going to ask her to take him in the hall or something and read for 15 while we VTS so I can get things going right with the kids. Very difficult and sensitive situation, so I will be treading lightly.
Overall I am please with those who were willing to share, but there was always at least 5 per class that were done after about 2 minutes and off in their own world.

Great week in the VTS department, I think I might try it with my 5th graders at the start of our next project.

VTS Week 7

Common Core

I must admit, my experience with CC has been very slight. I have been in a few meetings were they briefly discussed a few important ideas. I am ready to be educated on this topic, especially looking forward to the CC workshop at Knob! And my art department is looking at bringing someone in to discuss CC with the art teachers for our next PD day.  My fellow teachers have been through several meeting about CC so far (they let the art people do their own pd that day).

I am finding it difficult to voice my opinion/attitude based on my inexperience with CC. My one concern I feel I can voice is, Is CCSS just another buzz things, you know the it thing of school. Is this here to replace "no child left behind" and do it right, or simply a new name with a few restructurings? Needless to say I need more knowledge.

After our think tank session, I am convinced from what little I was able to see of the standards, VTS fits in so well it's crazy. I was totally amazed that all of us were able to look at a short list of items with reading and we could fit VTS in, in every way!  This makes me so happy to be on the front end of a movement that is actually going to do something great and still meet the mandates of the state. Go VTS!!!!

VTS Week 6

Video lesson
Here is a link to my vts session with my 4th graders. Let me apologize in advance for the blurriness of the video, I had no idea it was out of focus until our lesson was over. And this wasn't the best camera angle, but it was the only place to put it and cut the kids out (per district policy).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieivzOuRsz8

Also, this image was a poor quality upload- it was hard for myself to see the details crisply. Here is the link to the image that we VTSed: Grade 3-5 lesson 2 image 1 on the website
http://vtsweb.org/lessons/g302

Assessing Student Engagement and Learning:
16 minutes- 17/24 students made a comment- 34 comments were made.
Most of the students were very willing to comment on the piece. I still had 7 not make any comments. The students noticed so many different things with this piece. Students were drawn to the buffalo and Indians, especially to the fact that they were facing different directions, making them refer to movement a lot. One student made the observation that it looked like a reflection due to the repetition of the figures throughout the piece. Many animals were listed. Then came the interpretations of what the piece was made of "dead bear" and a student even referred to looking at the piece differently to discover that it looked like an animal skin. Many took note of the Indians riding horses and holding weapons and associated it with a fight, war, or hunt. Some tapped into their schema for their interpretations, for instance, "Out in the West, when their was a herd of buffalo, the Indians would jump out of the yellow grass and start throwing spears and shooting at them."
In the beginning it was a lot of listing but then they started to ping off one another leading to more interpretation answers. Most of the interpretations were coming from the students that had been really focused on the piece and studying it for a while. At least 6 times they said "I'm adding on to" or "I disagree with" creating great interactive discussion. A few times students would say "yes" or nod their head in agreeing with a classmate.
We concluded our discussion after the timer when off by me selecting the last three hands up. I always give praise and several students came up to me after we were done to give me ideas of what they were seeing. Students are obviously learning to get more detail oriented at what they see and describe. They also seem to be learning how to disagree with interpretations.

Reflecting on Practice:
 The lesson went a little smoothly than last time, but I was nervous knowing I was being taped. I noticed that I didn't use Q2 until about 5 1/2 minutes in. I am also not sure if I am making a no no but asking question to with a recap, "What do you see that makes you think it's a bat?" or "What do you see that suggests that they own the buffalo?" I noticed that I still am not comfortable with my opening statement and would love to know what everyone else is using. While watching the clock in the beginning, I said let's take a minute to look, and I waited for 8 seconds- Ha, I need to wait longer. I am still really struggling with the paraphrasing, and it seems to be worse now. For the most part I think I stayed neutral, I did slip with an "Oh" when someone pointed out something I had totally missed.

Planning:
My biggest goal for future VTS lessons is the paraphrasing and my wait time to let statements settle in for myself and students. The best practice is to keep practicing. I am hoping to implement a bit more VTS with other grades.
Overall it was a positive experience.

VTS Week 5

Portrait of Possibility:

I have several students in mind that VTS will be a benefit for. But today I am going to focus on two boys, Mr. Storyteller and Mr. Self Confidence. Both of these boys are in 4th grade.

Mr. Storyteller-
I have had Mr. Storyteller for about 9 months and everyday he continues to wow me in many ways. On the first day he attended art, he wore his art shirt, which was a tshirt that had a picture of his art from his old school on it. He is always looking for validation and when he gets it, he will then remind me "remember when you said you like my drawing" etc. This is a kiddo that needs constant stimulation- he is frequently making noises that his peers find very difficult to ignore. During instruction time, he rarely pays attention, no matter where he sits or even with a personal invitation. He is very enthusiastic about everything he does and loves art! I have chosen Mr. Storyteller because of what I saw with lesson 1 vts. He was engrossed in the art and conversation the whole time. 15 minutes of focus time for Mr. Storyteller is totally unheard of, Yipee :) I feel that VTS caters to my friend in so many ways, he loves to tell stories and his imagination is endless. I have noticed that his attention to detail with VTS is incredible compared to previous assignments. I think VTS will help Mr. Storyteller stay focused, engage in higher level conversations with classmates, get the validation he enjoys, allow him to share his ideas in a light that gains respect from his peers, and get him excited in a new way about art. The plan, VTS Mr. Storyteller and his classmates, making mental notes to later tie back to, with the validation of noticing his hard work and focus. Hopefully this focus will start to stretch into other parts of his education!

Mr. Self Confidence-
He has been my student for the past two years. Oddly enough he is a twin and I think they are totally different in many ways, but exactly the same in one area... self confidence. He seems to lack any kind of confidence in his work. He needs me to help him or validate his every move in my room- and it has only gotten worse in the last year, I do know that this is also the case in his classroom as well. I have to admit, I am concerned that Mr. Self Confidence gets the annoyed vibe from me once and a while... last year about Christmas time, I worked really hard at helping him (and brother) to make decisions for themselves without needing me for every step. It drives me insane when my students ask me "like this" and the answer is right in front of them, or "what do you think Mrs. Schotte." My typical response is,"what do you think, you are the artist" or "look at my example, does it look like what I did."  We had made a lot of progress, but a summer away means one step forward, two steps back. I wonder if something is not happening outside of school that he is taught to use someone else opinion and approval for every little thing. My hope is that VTS will help him to slow down and really pay attention to details. He struggles to pay attention in class and rushes through a lot of work. I also hope that Mr. Self Confidence will gain more confidence when he is validated for his answers in VTS and potentially students will start "pinging" from his ideas to give in more peer derived confidence. The plan is the same at Mr. Storyteller- let VTS do its magic.

VTS Week 4

Assessing, Reflecting and Planning- I'm playing a little catch up here, getting used to a different rotation this year and still having plenty of time to make art, means I have to really consider where I'm putting my VTS.... But I think I might finally have an idea of where we are headed.

http://vtsweb.org/lessons/g301#  this was our image.

I must start off by saying, that my little think tanks are surprising me more and more with VTS! There has always been something I absolutely loved about the 4th graders (each year) and now this age level is proving perfect for this class! My pilot class had 26 kiddos in it and it's a packed house. I invited them to scoot up, but many chose to stay at their spots, some in the back as much as 20 feet away. Note to self, next time have them move closer. I had a great participation from about 18 of the kids, wanting to keep adding more, but there were those few that never said anything, several of those in the back. We actually had to stop after 16 minutes, I think they could have kept going!

Discussion- Several students would just list until they were able to Ping off another students idea. In the beginning they were all on the idea line of the woman in bed being sick, then it moved to what the relationship was between the people in the painting with the people in the photographs. Eventually ideas of money,  and jobs came up. We did have to stop and review that it was okay to disagree, but that they needed to raise their hand. One of the kids said " I think there are feet under the bed"  and about half the class said out loud "I disagree" "no it's not" etc. But after my reminder, they were much better about waiting their turn and then saying "I disagree because." Our discussion concluded with me saying that I would take you (pointing to the last three hands up) and then we will have to stop for today. After we were done I asked the kids, "how many of you thought we would be able to talk about this piece for 15 minutes?" and no one raised their hands. So I congratulated them on really looking at the piece and having a fantastic discussion! They all seemed surprised and proud. This observation tells me that my kids are starting to realize how much they can find and learn about a piece from looking at it and discussing it for a while with others.

Reflecting- When the kids walked in the door, I remembered right then, that they were going to VTS the image I had looked at thennight before. So I didn't want to waste time, and I had them get pencils ready and their pictures out from their previous visit. This allowed me enough time to sign into my account and get the image up. Lesson learned because then I felt frantic and needed to be more focused. Next time get it ready to go before my day starts, since my classes are back to back and I don't have time to find it before their class comes in. Once we got started it went well overall, I didn't have any "quiet time" in fact it was hard to get to all of them as their hands kept shooting up without them getting frustrated for not being called on yet. I used our three questions, but forgot to say "what more can we find" until about 7 minutes into the discussion.... they kept raising their hands so I didn't need to. Eventually I remember and this felt redundant to me, but I did notice that new hands were showing up when I used the last question. I struggled a bit with paraphrasing, and was totally surprised by one of my little story tellers response. He gave this like 2 minute long answer and I tried really hard to get everything paraphrased and then closed with good, he says, "And there was the soup thing" so here is a kid who noticed the one thing I left out of his paraphrasing.... lol I just said, "yes, and this looks like it might be soup, good" and he gave me the head nod of "okay I'm good now."  This just proved to me that there are kids who really pay attention to and appreciate the validation that the paraphrasing gives. Also keep in mind this is a kid who cannot go 15 minutes without a neighbor tattling that he is bothering them or making noises. And he almost never pays attention to directions. He was totally sucked in the entire time and silently thinking! I am working so hard on being neutral, and keeping "good" as my ending to each child's response, but every once in a while something different slips out. Working on that one.

Planning: To be more prepared for future VTS lessons I need to work on the following:
*Spending at least 15 minutes studying the work, to really be ready for the paraphrasing and pointing.
*Getting my beginning speech set to memory.
*Staying neutral.

Overall I felt it went great, and my kiddos and I still have a lot to learn with VTS. I'm very proud of them :)

VTS1 Week 3

Woo Ecstatic Teacher Here!!!!!  If I could have posted at work and not have been blocked, I totally would have done that at lunch.

What an exciting day! My 4th grade group took their pre-assessment. It went fantastically. I quickly glanced at them and skimmed a few for content. I had word count varying from 20 words to 120 words. Most of them were well written and really payed attention to details. I gave them 15 minutes with the prompt we were given. I still had 3 that were intently looking and writing when the timer went off :) I will report back with more results, I have decided to have each group of 4th graders take the assessment. I can't wait to see how they do.

Also, I was at the tail end of a class (3rd grade) and had just finished introducing our next project (Pablo Picasso).  I need to fill the last 10 minutes until they walked out the door, so I did a VTS session on a Picasso piece (collage musicians). The kids came up close because I only had a print of the image, I quickly described a few points about VTS, and we started. Their responses were very creative, and then as someone pointed out a hidden dog in the image the conversation took off. I might have messed up a bit and am not sure if this was okay. My kids were pointing out colors, so I kinda of fed more information, asking about color families. Can we do that or only stick to the three questions?  Well it was a great way to end the class and I'm looking forward to trying it with the rest of 3rd grade this week.

I enjoyed watching the woman and her class on you-tube. She did a fantastic job of paraphrasing. I especially like the way she pointed out how they had seen a certain number of things before she paraphrased. Then she would say,  "I'm just curious, what did you see that makes you think that was ______________"  I thought this was a great way to pose the question in a really neutral way, while acknowledging  the kids ideas.

Happy VTSing- So far- Great things are happening :)

VTS 1 Week 2

Last weekend's class was great. I'm glad that I was able to be a part of practice with everyone. Due to an insane schedule and extra things piled on to the beginning of our year, my colleagues were not able to help me. So I will talk about our class session last weekend. Since i had not tried VTS before it was a bit nerve racking to try it out, but glad to see that others were also inexperienced with me. I must admit, it felt like teaching at home, you were just a bit taller with more knowledge ;)  I received positive feedback, and was glad to hear that even though I was nervous, it didn't show too much. It was so interesting to feel my brain going in so many directions at once. I was concerned that I would struggle a lot with the paraphrasing, but it kept getting better as I went. I noticed my brain was not only paraphrasing, analyzing what had been said, analyzing the art, but also it was thinking actively about how I was responding to everyone. As soon as I told one of you, "great job", my brain freaked and I thought wait, I've been saying good, I have to stick with one thing! This is such an actively engaging process for the students and the teachers. I really enjoyed the way we were all feeding off each others ideas, sometimes channeling our entertaining students, and learning from the way that each of us facilitated the discussion! Go Team :)


Well a little of an update on my group. I wanted to make sure I could see them twice before I picked a specific group. I am super excited about the group I have chosen to work with for our video sessions. I am still waiting on a few permission slips. I did run into a bit of a problem with the video. It is my district policy that no child can be video taped unless it is for national board certification, no exceptions. So I will only be able to video myself, but we will still be able to hear the kids responses. I was able to get most permission slip signed at curriculum night! They stated that parents were "acknowledging the fact that I was filming myself for my college class. Hopefully the rest show up Monday... fingers crossed. But this group is perfect for many reasons. All of these students are former students. No one has extreme visual impairments in this class. And they are already stepping in line to show what great listeners they are... as well as great conversationalists. I have a few story tellers in this group, but I did that on purpose :)  I can't wait to see what they say!  I will be giving my pre-assessment on Monday and then get to see this group again on Friday and we will conduct a live VTS session! Woo hoo   I love my 4th graders!  I have also decided to make sure to pre and post assess all of my 4th grade groups (4 classes total), to have great data to share with my staff next year as we begin to implement VTS school wide.
More updates to come!

VTS 1: Week 1

I apologize for my late blogging, I finally found my info to get back into my blog :)

I teach K-5 art at an elementary school in Blue Springs, MO. I have about 525 students this year. Due to the changes in enrollment and the fact that I haven't met all of my classes yet, I have not made the final decision on the exact class yet. My basic idea and hope is to VTS one of my 4th grade classes. My classes are 22-25 students. I have only been working with the students at my school for the last 2 years. I know that VTS was "supposed" to be touched on by the teacher before me, but I believe she only did it with the older students, who have moved on to the middle school. We have done some art discussions, but 4th grade is where I typically start presenting the idea of art discussion "how to" and deeper discussions. As for art making most of these students have been making art with our school since Kindergarten.

These students will see me a total of 40ish visits this year. Their visits are 50 minutes long. Due to an extra "Friday Rotation" I will sometimes have the opportunity to see them twice a week. My classroom is hooked up with great technology tools. I have an interactive white board that I use often. My room id long and spread out. The student furthest from the board is about 20 feet away. This could pose a problem when paying attention to smaller details. I do not have enough room on the carpet in front of the team board for all their bodies. I am thinking I will offer those in the back to pull chairs forward, or sit on the floor. I have a lot to look at in my art room. I display many prints and hope to be better about changing them more frequently this year.

I am choosing 4th grade for several reasons. This seems to be the grade that I am most comfortable talking about art with. They are mature enough to discuss these ideas and have enough schema to help with the discussions. I also have noticed that my fifth graders seem to be more silly in their discussions about art. I am the VI (visually impaired) school for the district. Currently 4th grade has the least number of VI students, which works out best.

My assumptions are that this group will do well with discussions, just as they have in the past. I also assume that it is going to take some time for the students to become comfortable with the VTS techniques. I am also anticipating a challenge with my limited technology experience, especially with video taping. Time to learn something new! I am very lucky to have a supportive principal. My principal worked with Mary for several years and saw the benefits of VTS in their school. He is excited for me to learn this skill. I am also nervous because he wants me to teach the rest of my building how to VTS next school year, and we will have school wide implementation. I hope to have a decision made on my group fairly soon and report back with more information on my kiddos.