VTS Week 15 and Final Project.

Holy Cow have the boys significantly improved! (statically that is).
However I honestly didn't really need the numbers to tell me that. I've been watching them over the past few months and really I noticed a HUGE breakthrough during the "Giants" artwork. This has only been reaffirmed in all of my boys Post VTS data as well. Even the couple of boys who didn't really write much on their post test, one was like "We've already done this and its boring!" the other I am honestly not sure why he didn't write as much though I have seen growth with him as well. They are all improving and apparently it isn't just noticeable to our eyes but according to Mr. Tilley even their classroom teachers are noticing. The effort is there more now then it was at the start of this semester. I see it every Thursday and I have a hard time imaging that it isn't happening throughout the rest of the week as well.
I will say I have grown as well. I knew VTS worked but I wasn't sure to how well it worked.During the summer I kept hearing about VTS multiple times and since I kept hearing it worked I but was a bit skeptical that I would see that much growth that soon. I realize that I work with boys who have, for most of them, been doing VTS for at least 3 semesters. However it doesn't matter and I have both proof that it works holistically and statically now as well and have become more of a believer, It works plain and simple. I've also grown while doing this. I'm a lot more confident with younger artist now then I was a few months ago and this experience has been a large part of that. I know that little goof ups arnt the end of the world and they just really want you to teach them and notice the work they've done. I use VTS as well as the rest of my tools to not only make better artist, but also better critical thinkers.

I was able to get a value of 3.5721 which is larger than my critical value of 1.812 which makes my result VERY significant. I am rejecting the null hypothesis and because of the significant difference. Also since it was a positive number I can see my post scores were significantly better.

To finish up I feel this is a good time and place to my finial project on here.

VTS Week 14

I think VTS has worked out very well for "Steve". He seems to talk a alot more and not just during discussion but also during art making actives with the rest of the boys as well. I know I would make sure to call on him every time I would see his hand raised and he would also generally have something completely unique to say also. I think this also made him more comfortable around his peers because they would then sometimes "ping" off of his answer and I feel that not only made him more confident during VTS but also around his peers.
I think VTS has provided a wonderful scaffolding mechanism for all the boys and not just Steve. When we started out with more "simple" images they were all able to jump in and didn't seem to have issues with the art making or writing activity afterwords. As we got to more complex images the boys were able to start diagnosing them more and would differentiate more on ideas. The more complex images also cause them to write more complex and in-depth stories as well. Over time they started to use adjectives and create more elaborate stories with a beginning, middle, and end.
VTS also allows for plenty of differentiation. Since all of my boys were of similar interest and ages it wouldn't have been easy to do it for them. However if there had been girls in my group there could have been days were I could have easily used images that could have been tailored to interest the boys or the girls.

VTS Week 9 and 11

I have actually decided to combine week 9 and 11 due how quickly they came together.

John Henry (from the American Tall Tale)
Artist: Michael McCurdy
Children's Book American Tall Tales (via Google)

This is for BWC Group B which are 2nd-3rd Grade boys.
We have been going through a unit called "Tall Tales" and which has been covering Loch Ness, Giants, and Paul Bunyon. I remembered hearing the tale of John Henry as a kid and thinking that it would be a good subject matter. The fact that he is dual wielding 20lbs hammers drew me to this image as well as the drill behind him. I think image will support what we are doing because it will not only follow the theme of "Tall Tales" but should also help the boys add on to their writing about their giants or the "creating their own object" activity. I think it will challenge the students because it is not realistically drawn. A second aspect could be that the "drill" might not be completely obvious and that John Henry and the drill are competing. I think most (if not all) of the boys won't know/recognize this imagery so it should provide some fantastic results. I think they will notice the hammers and probably the drill to an extent. I think the positioning of John Henry's body might cause some intrigue as well as the man in the background. The location also might help to draw the boys to question what is going on and why they are down there

VTS Week 8

The Group B BWC I feel are progressing along quite well. Since a majority of the boys have already been apart of Boys Writers before this hasn't been their first go with it. The one(?) new member of Boys Writers seems to have advanced to the same level and participation of the rest of the boys. Some boys are still a bit reluctant to respond during discussion and I think it is due to shyness. I think with time we will be able to get them to become more responsive.Generally the boys seem to approach all the images the same way either by creating a story with image or approaching the images with prior knowledge from other forms of media.
They quality of discussion has only seemed to get better. I think it does help that the boys are getting more comfortable with me leading the VTS as well as myself becoming more comfortable with leading it. The boys do sometimes get hung up with disagreement though it isn't disrespectful by any means. When it comes to the boys artwork they seem to be producing pretty high quality work, they are working on panel story books, and at least one boy in particular has been working on the inside of it REALLY hard for the past couple of weeks.
At the very minimum the boys are definitely organizing their thoughts more thus becoming more confident and clearer with what they are saying. When we started this semester some boys were all over the place when they were describing what they saw. It seemed that when we started they seemed to go into a type of "information" overload, trying to literally say everything they saw/thought was going on sometimes without seeming to finish their train of thought. Now we don't seem to jump around the images as much, though we still will get at least one student in particular who would say everything he saw if he could, and seem to complete a thought spoken on one thing before trying to move onto the next thing.
Other then the 2nd and 3rd graders being awesome, I've learned that they all have ideas and every single one of them might be different. I think that due to all of the knowledge I have acquired throughout life its really easy for me to look at something and think "blank" is "blank". However the boys remind me a lot of Magritte's "This is not a pipe" and remind me that we don't all see everything the same way and prior knowledge and "growing up" can take the fun out of alot of things.
I do use them and they really do help. I also have tweaked my statement to have the boys hear what Mary tells them when she does VTS and to also to be tweaked when something might need to be address from week to week. I think time has just made them it more comfortable for me. These boys have been through this for awhile for the most part and they don't really notice when I "mess up" my opening statement.
Though I am not actually "teaching yet" I've noticed that image selection isn't easy. When I helped out with Group C they responded to a Yeti image really well. However when I met with my group later that day we used the same image and it didn't seem to get nearly the same reaction. I think it just shows that you definitely have to find whats right for your age group as well as your own students personalities.
I am a bit surprised by the pace of the progress they are making. When we started out the writing itself wasn't the greatest. Now I am already seeing signs of improvement and wondering where they will be at the END! If they keep this up I think you will have a hard time knowing if some of them had trouble with writing at all.

VTS Week 7

When it comes to CCSS I know very little about it but have heard about it. I've heard some of it through my various classes and personal research. I know that common core hasn't been released for art yet. Once they are released I think we will see how well they will integrate with what art teachers are already doing.
Personally I like the concept/idea of the CCSS. Most common core seems to already state what I think should be taught in the classrooms anyways, and just put everyone more so on the same page. I think when CCSS is finally released for art we will find (at least amongst ourselves) we are already implementing most if not all aspects of the common core in our classrooms.
I think VTS will fit well into the CCSS. VTS has students think critically about what they are seeing which seems to be an important aspect of the common core. We are also working from a literacy aspect which, though I haven't read much about the common core yet, I would imagine that it also plays a large part throughout all aspects of it. I am now really curious to see the common core standards come out to art and see what is included and how well VTS fits into it (which I think it will really well).

VTS Week 5

I am going to call my student Steve (it's the name of my uncle and its in my head at the moment for some reason). Steve is very quite in general it seems regardless if its during VTS or not. If you do ask him a question though one on one he does manage to give a pretty detail description of whatever you are asking, and its generally a lot more then what he writes. I think over time he might give more answers as we progress throughout the semester and will start to write down more of his thoughts on paper thanks to VTS. I think with the scaffolding and open-ended aspect of VTS he will then grow more in his writing both in confidence ,though I don't feel like he is lacking any, and in all of the technical aspects. I know whenever I see his hand up I will call on his as quickly as I can and try to get as much out of his as possible, without trying to break neutrality and fairness of course.

VTS Week 13

While I was reading the beginning of the reading rocks article and read the magic work differentiated instruction I thought well at the very least we change the process of the approach to material. A few sentences later and boom there it was! VTS allows us as educators to allow all of our students the opportunity to still work from the same material, but approach it and interpret it at their own level. All of the members of the BWC have the same issue with that they are struggling writers. Some have more background knowledge on certain topics and some can vocalize what they are thinking a bit better, other then that they all seem to be fairly on the same level. Nevertheless VTS allows each boy to approach an image through a different route on something they feel more confident with. Then if one of the boys hears something he didn't know beforehand but knew something else already in the image that changes the content for him. This new information provides a better and more adaptable learning environment by having the content within the image being ever changing with everything they hear. Learning environment felt just like a gimme to honestly because VTS wants students to collobrate with each other! The boys seem to collaborate with each other so easily and I have videos as proof!