Blog Topic #6 Reviewing the Tape

The participation of the boys was varied this time.  Some hands shot up immediately and eagerly participated the whole time, while there were a few that we did not hear from at all.  All boys sat quietly, though, and listened to one another.

Right away the boys noticed that the picture was about a game about to be cancelled by rain.  I thought it was interesting that it wasn't until about half way through the discussion that someone actually identified the three central figures as umpires.  There was a fair amount of discussion about what was going on with the figures just behind the umpires and others noticed more players in the distance, although, rather than describing them as far away, they described them as small.

There wasn't much interaction among the boys in terms of linking, agreeing, or disagreeing this time around.  Most boys just offered their own observations independently of others.  Toward the end, one student identified the protective equipment that had previously been identified as perhaps a potato chip or a pork chop.  Reactions from the crowd seemed to indicate corroboration with this observation.

One thing I learned from facilitating this lesson, is to take all comments seriously with neutrality.  When the boys began identifying what to me was clearly baseball equipment as potato chips and porkchops, I was tempted to assume that they were just goofing around.  But upon watching the video, I think there was more sincerity in their uncertainty about those objects than I realized.  And they did succeed at providing visual evidence for their assertions, so fair enough, I guess.

I think I stuck to the question format fairly successfully.  I don't usually have too much trouble with that aspect of the method.  Watching myself on video, though, I can see the subtleties in my responses and my paraphrasing and how much of an impact that can have on the discussion.

I was surprised that I felt more nervous in front of the students than I have practicing with my peers.  I feel more pressure to really get it right for the boys than I do when with my fellow practitioners in training.  I was also surprised that some of the comments that seemed silly and off the wall were really more sincere than I realized.  I'm learning to follow their lead, and not the other way around.

I want to continue to work on my neutrality and not give the impression that some answers are more right than others.  I think I can achieve this by keeping an open mind.

BLOG TOPIC #4: Assessing, Reflecting, Planning

This morning I led a VTS discussion of Norman Rockwell's "Three Umpires", my first VTS experience with stage 1 viewers in a classroom.  Participation was not quite as good as I expected it to be, considering that these boys are fairly familiar with doing VTS.  I think about 1/3 of the boys made no comments during the discussion.  Those who did participate offered a mix of assertions, some evidenced and some not, as well as a few interpretations.  Most seemed to understand right away that the picture is about a baseball game being rained out.  A number of comments attempted to interpret what was going on between the two partially hidden figures behind the umpires; perhaps a bribe, some kind of deal, or betting.

Students behaved and interacted well during the discussion, as I expected.  Most of these boys have done VTS before and are familiar with the rules.  They raised their hands when they wanted to contribute, and most waited patiently to be called on.  I did notice that when one boy made a comment that I believe he knew to be silly, (I see a potato chip) other boys sort of wanted to follow suit, but the discussion got easily back on track.  Several boys drew on prior knowledge about what kinds of clothes and equipment baseball players and umpires wear.  One boy recognized the text  that appears to be painted on a wall to be advertising.  I thought it was interesting that even though he couldn't give a lot of further justification for why he identified it as advertising, he new that he was accustomed to seeing ads on the walls of stadiums. I could see that the students were really trying to figure out what was going on in this scene, not just with the three main figures in the foreground, but those in the midground and background as well, which tells me that they are looking closely.

I definitely found leading the discussion with young, stage one viewers to be a little more challenging than leading my peers.  At times their ideas were a little hard to follow, as they wanted to list several things at once or were making observations and assertions that were not completely evident or clear to me.  This also made neutrality more difficult.  When a student made an off the wall observation, I had to be aware of my reaction, so as not to give the impression that they had gotten it wrong.  Conversely, when I noticed a student putting things together, I had to be careful to not be more affirming.  For example, I think I responded with "interesting" to the potato chip comment, "good" to most of the comments, and "yes, good" to some that I felt were really getting back on the right track.

I did not have the opportunity to look closely at the image before today's VTS which I didn't think would make too much of a difference, especially since this was a classic image that I had seen before, but now I can see how helpful it is to study the image beforehand.  I was able to conduct the VTS well enough, but my gesturing to the right parts of the image was a little hesitant and uncomfortable.  Hopefully this will be alleviated next time when I have a chance to look at the image first. 

I also think I should have actually rehearsed my introduction a little more.  Fortunately these boys knew the routine, but I could have started things out a little more smoothly.

So, bottom line...preparation is key.