Description of class
I teach K-8 Art. I have two classes I'm considering for VTS; one with 13 students with 5 girls, 8 boys. One with 14 students with 6 girls, 8 boys. This school is a 96% white, 42% free/reduced lunch, very rural area. About half of each class lives on a farm. These are both 6th grade classes, 11 & 12 year old. Students in this class have had an art class every year since Kindergarten, but my understanding is it was mostly crafty. I choose 6th grade because it is one of my favorite age groups. This age group has the capability of a little higher level thinking then my K-5 students. I hope after they practiced VTS they will have very insightful ideas. I also hope student's experience with VTS will reflect in other subjects and other aspects of their lives as well. Both groups have more boys then girls and my experience with both groups is that the boys are little silly, I'm worried there my be some outlandish comments when we first start. I also have a 6th grader who is has trouble in all class dominating conversations. that student is a wild card. Over all I'm excited to start VTS with these groups.
Hello Adair! I, too, chose to collect data using VTS with a smaller group of students. The other 7 hours of instruction have between 25 and 30 artists in them. I would like to practice collecting and understanding empirical data with a smaller sample size. I am going to use VTS in all of my curriculum. I am interested to hear about your student that commands the conversations, as I, too, have some students in some classes that tend to do the same. Although, my judgements are based on only three class discussions about artwork:) Since we have only had three days of school!
ReplyDeleteThis will be a fun class to watch! With your higher number of boys and considering the grade level, we may have to tweak the image selection. I'm convinced that if kids find an image compelling, the discussion momentum and classroom management take care of themselves. Also, don't sell your K-5ers short. As a career K-5 art teacher with 7 years of VTS artroom experience, I've seen some pretty amazing and complex thinking out of even 5 year olds! ;0) A smaller group is a good choice, though, because more kids get to contribute in the limited time you have with them and full participation is our ultimate goal. I'd suggest, too, that you set up the expectation from the beginning that they give you one comment per opportunity. That will make your paraphrasing much easier AND discourage grand-standers from making others feel that there's nothing less to say. Anxious to hear how it goes!
ReplyDelete