VTS - What is it??

Students come to the art Experience Room twice a month. The second visit will always include participation in Visual Thinking Strategies or VTS.Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a method of looking at carefully selected images for Kindergarten through 6th grade and having facilitated dicussions about these visual images. Really, this method can be applied to anything visual.

This method of looking was developed by Philip Yenawine (director of Museum of Modern Art) and cognitive psychologist Abigail Housen to give the museum visitor a better way of viewing the pieces of art they were looking at.

Students are given a moment to quietly look at an image then the question is asked “What is going on this picture?” This is a better questions than “What do you see?” in that “What is going on this picture?” allows early viewers to “list” things that they might see but also leave it open for “telling the story” that they see.

When an observation is given that is not easily understood or even to give more clarification (only with 2nd grade and above) the question “What do you see that makes you say it is a.........?” is posed. The student is asked to ground their observation with evidence from the picture. Eventually, the students naturally answer the first question and back up their observation with evidence of what they know to be true in one sentence.

Then you continue to probe the image with the last question of “What more can we find?”. This encourages the viewer to continue finding more details.

As the facilitator, you are constantly pointing or gesturing at the image in regards to where the discussion has headed. That keeps the focus on the picture. Restating the student’s response gives you the opportunity to expand their vocabulary with new choice of words, staying true to their original response.

There are no right or wrong answers, every answer is accepted and students learn to disagree or agree with each others views as well as learn to change their view based on others observations. VTS is an effective way to discuss the aesthetics of art as well as develop critical thinking and communication skills.
Visit the main website of www.vue.org (VUE is Visual Undertanding in Education) for more in depth information.

But for a quick video of VTS at work, visit www.visualthinkingstrategies.org.

Michelle Lustgarten

Art Specialist