Week 6: Assessing, Reflecting, Planning

·      Assessing  Student Engagement and Learning:

o   Describe student willingness to participate in the 2^nd VTS discussion.

When I began the class and told them we would do VTS and took a video, they said “Oh, no”. I thought maybe they want to do some painting at this time. But when they saw the picture I showed them, they quickly became excited and have many ideas.

o   What did students notice about the featured artwork?

They noticed people were walking and playing outside first, and then they figured out what they were playing. In additional, they found one person got hurt because there’s an ambulance. Even more, they noticed someone were looking out of window, a mother was holding a baby, someone was writing on the ground with white chalk, a little girl got lost. They also listed some items like buildings, bridge, cat, trashcan and a police car.

o   Did students list or interpret their observations? (Why do you think that occurred?)

Sometimes they just listed the items, maybe these things can not be easily connected with other things. But most of the time they inferred something from what they had seen and even made up a story. I think kids all like story, they have a rich imagination.

o   Describe student interactions during the discussion.  How did this impact group meaning-making?

They often build some narratives together by connecting others’ ideas. It make the discussion deeper and more interesting, and help the meaning-making about the image. For example, one saw someone got hurt and an ambulance, and another will connect it to the roller-skating he had found before, then they made up a story that when playing roller-skating, someone lost balance, so he got hurt, the ambulance was to bring him to the hospital.

o   How did the discussion conclude? 

I noticed them can hardly find anything new and I checked the time, it is around 15 min, so I thanked them to participating VTS and appreciated their job.

o   What do you think students learned from this discussion?

They really observed a lot of thinks and give many reasons by finding evidences in the image. I think they can know how to draw a scene that people are playing. And they also learn to listen to others and build ideas together.

o   What did you observe that makes you say that?

They connected others’ ideas and make new meanings and narratives. They almost found everything in the image.

·      Reflecting on Practice:

o   How did the VTS discussion feel and what did you learn by facilitating this lesson with your students for the second time?

I think I am more natural this time but still a little bit nervous, maybe because I always care about the video. I learn to listen to their ideas carefully and sometimes take part in the discussion.

o   Were you able to use the questions and prescribed teacher behaviors comfortably? If you omitted or changed one, what impact did it have on the discussion?  Why do you think that occurred?

Yes. The three questions are very useful to lead the discussion. Sometimes I will say “why” instead of “What can you see makes you say that”. I think the reason is sometimes I am just so curious about what they said, I want to know the reason, so I can’t help to say “why”. I think it is not good to act like this, the question should related to the image.

o   Were there any surprises?  How will these impact your practice moving forward?

They can find so many details and can give reasonable interpretations according to the image. I will choose images have more details to give them a challenge.

·      Planning:

o   What do you want to work on as you plan for future VTS lessons?

I will choose images carefully to follow their step and ability.

I also want to let them learn something painting methods from VTS, such as today we VTS a picture that many people are playing outside, I want them learn how to express the same topic when they create their own painting.

o   How do you think you can accomplish that?

I will work hard and focus on selecting the image