Blog Topic #6

How might Housen and Yenawine respond to Zander's ideas?
I believe Housen and Yenawine would agree with many of Zander's ideas and say "Yes, someone else is thinking on our path."  Zander states in his article that students need the opportunity to practice making dialogue with their peers (pg. 52).  I believe he is right.  The youth of today has little face to face interaction on a day to day base with their peers.  They thrive through their cellphones and this dialogue is very different from actual verbal face to face dialogue.  Students need the opportunity to learn to communicate without arguing, they need to learn to listen and engage in a conversation.  Zander also suggests that the teacher should act as a facilitator and offer open-ended questions to the students.  The questions Zander list are very close to the questions suggested to use in a VTS discussion.  Teachers should not impose their ideas on the students.  The teacher should offer a variety of aspects along with suggestions from students and let them decide where they stand on the topic. 

Reflect on Beattie chapters.  Share any ideas you may have regarding the application of scoring/judging strategies to VTS lessons.  Share any ideas you may have regarding the use of VTS in summative evaluations.
In my opinion I believe VTS lessons would be hard to assess.  Having them recorded would help with assessment of them.  Being able to look back at the discussion would help me mark who was participating and contributing to the conversation.  In my experience so far with my 4th grade students, I have seen some who are always ready to share new ideas.  There are others who sit back and observe at times and some who will participate really well during one lesson and the next time they don't have anything to share.  I have one student in particular who always has at least one comment during the discussion and it is usually full of insightful information, but that may be the only time he shares.  Would he receive a lower grade than a student who has their hand up the whole time and just repeats things that other classmates share?  As I said earlier, VTS lessons would be hard to assess.  VTS lessons utilize many of the core skills that Beattie discusses in this chapter (pg. 118) during the actual discussion and even after the fact when a student is working independently on a project.  What is running through the students head?  Are they thinking about parts of the discussion and applying to the process of creating their own artwork?  I hope they are.  :)  Art assessment is one of the hardest things for me as a teacher.  I have addressed this problem many times this semester already in many of my blog posts.  The questions just keep coming....As I think back to last semester in my Research Class with Belinda Smith.  I have so many questions...I guess this could be leading to another research project.  :)