Visage Of War, Salvador Dali
Assessing Student Engagement & Learning
This was my first VTS video that I accomplished. It was a struggle for me, as I wanted to have a completely involved session for Mary Franco to effectively critique. I felt as though there was a lot of pressure to make a sound audio and video experience as to draw the viewer into the session. I chose the artwork, Visage of War by Salvador Dali, as I thought it would be an extreme visual piece that would encapsulate much conversation to the class.
Students seemed extremely willing to participate in this VTS, as the image seemed to frighten and grip their attention. Being my first video, I was a bit nervous to be videoed, and I believe that may have caused some interruption, as I did not really know the boundaries with VTS and video. The first student to speak was plainly trying to be silly, as he soon realized that the other students were engaged. this brought me my first video dilemma, which was how to handle those situations as a facilitator. Most of the initial responses were such as: "I see a skull, with other skulls, and snakes, and dirt." Finally, one of the students described the image as "death." I felt that this was a GREAT summation of the image. I feel as though the students were quite descriptive, but I also got the feeling that there was a sense of withholding information. I was unsure how to handle this, so I continued to let the conversation continue. One student made reference to the name of the painting as a way of describing it.
I was still referencing the questions from a piece of paper, which I felt gave more reason to prompt the students, although I was making a conscious effort to avoid doing that.
Reflecting On Practice
In reflection, I am beginning to realize my faults mostly. I believe that the way in which I approached the video VTS may have hindered the ability of the students. I tried using a microphone so that each student could be heard, and that may have caused a sense of uneasiness with their deliberations.
I also feel that I am struggling with actual facilitation. I committed the cardinal sin of giving the title to the students (as a way of introducing the VTS to the instructor). This may have limited the conversations.
As odd as it seems, the positives of the VTS came with the students reaction to the piece. It gave them enough subject matter to continue a discussion for more than 10 minutes. I consider this aspect a success.
My final flaw was giving my thoughts on the piece of art. I feel myself wanting to take part in the discussions and helping to steer the facilitations in efforts to prompt them further. I will keep pressing, and improving thanks to the wonderful and constructive criticism.
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1 comments:
First, let me say that you are on a completely normal learning curve, so give yourself a pat on the back for what you are doing well. What I'm hearing from you is what I experienced myself early on and heard from your colleagues before in this class. I know that the OMG successes will follow for you shortly as well, so be comforted! The "oopses" will gradually disappear as both you and your students get comfortable with the process and begin to realize how fascinating art discussions can be. It is always a great leap for both teacher and students to engage in a process with multiple answers. The neatest thing about VTS from the pedagogical standpoint is that it motivates the teacher's reflective thinking. When we "oops," it is usually evident in the responses we get from our students, and before the discussion is even over, we are asking ourselves Question 1 & Question 2: What's going on in this discussion? What am I seeing, hearing, witnessing that makes me say that? What can I now do with that information? (Yes, VTS becomes a way of thinking about almost everything!) I'm finding that didactic teaching begets list-makers who are great at noticing things, but not so good at recognizing narratives and themes on their own. They don't have to. The teacher will do it for them, so they can kick back and wait for that to happen. As you get proficient at letting go and pushing students to lead the way in a discussion (and I promise you, they will!), the list-makers will be replaced with insightful interpreters who engage actively (and willingly) in the rigorous work of noticing deeply. Hang in there!
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