Blog Topic #3

Reflect upon how the ideas expressed by Yenawine in this article might have been reinforced (or contradicted) during your lesson 1 implementation.

       Yenawine's ideas in the article clarified and demonstrated many points including ambiguous and unclear parts I have wondered since I have studied VTS. I also met a lot of agreeable moments while I read this article. I especially sympathize with this mention below as a VTS instructor.

"Watching students participate in VTS discussions, one sees an exciting process of discovery that sticks with students as both an experience and a strategy, and interaction among diverse beings that stress individuality as an essential ingredient in group productivity."

     No wonder that VTS can also be attractive to instructors as well as to students. Open-ended question makes participants including instructors wonder what really happen to the picture. The more ideas come out, the more fascinated participants are in the designated work of art which is frequently neither special nor surprising though. During Lesson1, I realized that children have shown better concentration on the lesson than the previous lesson. They looked to enjoy to find something out in the work of art like treasure hunting. I feel also more comfortable this time and excited to look at children’s faces full of curiosity and paraphrase their ideas. I used to doubt the effectiveness of open-ended questions and believe that makes students dejected at the last moment when they realize there’s no answer. But it is completely groundless. They fully enjoyed and accepted the situation and it rather provides a safety for them not to hesitate to tell anything they want to say. Besides, the specific way of producing ideas through open-ended questions and active discussions make participants inspired to contribute into group productivity. I found, sometimes, many students have opposing opinions on the fact in the picture and they can easily argue about different tiny little things, but I believe this process is also necessary to create and reach a more developmental agreement.

     I was impressed by Yenawine's perspective about differences of viewers between Stage1 and Stage2. Reflecting this idea, I have become to have better understanding while I implemented the lessons and observe the children. According to him, some students tend to belong to Stage1 which is accountive viewer using their sense, memories and personal associations but other students seem to be constructive viewers using the most logical and accessible tools. I mostly agree with his idea that each student shows their specific way of thinking process and it can be classified as either Stage1 or Stage2.

“Since teachers are cosigned to working with groups, it is helpful to understand, be able to work with, and predict based on shared meaning-making strategies within groups. But to the degree that we want students to remain themselves, it is a comfort to see that aesthetic thinking is individualized at the same time as stage characteristics indicate collective behaviors.”

    While I had the class, I was also fascinated by many different kinds of thoughts but, in my mind, I preferred the type of answers of Stage 2 because they looked to have more profound perspective and to be based on critical thinking even though, as he mention, VTS instruction expects that participants show their own way of aesthetic thinking and any of them has to be respected. I think I better get used to how I can observe and evaluate children according to VTS scoring guideline without my preference.

    There is one more thing I totally agree with. As Lev Vygotsky’s theories points out in this article, I found that each student was limited to verbalize their thoughts when solving problem independently like pre VTS assessment but they increased their potential and capacity to describe or interpret the facts in the work of art when working with peers. It is very exciting moment for me to watch this developing process. The way the students interact and reach agreement during VTS class make me confident that this instruction totally “democratize” and “humanize”the class as Vladimir Orlov mentioned in front of his Russian colleagues.