1. Visual Thinking Strategies
An Introduction for
Instructional Coaches for Special Education
The Brooklyn Museum
May 22, 2012
Visual Understanding in Education

2. Agenda Welcome and Introductions VTS Discussion
  -- Deconstruct the VTS Method
Video of VTS in Action - Grade 4 Inclusion/ESL classroom
-- What does VTS Teach?
Practicing VTS in Small Groups in the Galleries
-- Demonstrate coaching to support teachers

3. What is Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)?
NAEA 08 Presentation: VTS + Middle School
VTS was co-created by
Abigail Housen, a cognitive psychologist and
Philip Yenawine, a museum educator
Gardner Museum and Lowe Art Museum programs 3

4. What is Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)?
NAEA 08 Presentation: VTS + Middle School
VTS is a discussion-based teaching strategy and a K-8 curriculum
Classroom discussions center on art to enable all students, regardless of language skill, to participate in a process of critical thinking about complex objects.
VTS was designed to build visual literacy. Teachers have found it to assist with language development, writing and reasoning in evidence.
Research has shown that VTS develops critical thinking skills (observation, inferring supported with evidence, speculation and revision) and language fluency.
Grounded in 30+ years of research and field-tested for 12 years.
Gardner Museum and Lowe Art Museum programs 4

5. VTS Curriculum: Images carefully selected for developmental appropriateness

6. Frida Kahlo
The Two Fridas Oil on Canvas. 67 x 67
Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.

7. Reflect on your experience:
What just happened in this discussion?
What did this process ask of you?
What did I do as the teacher, and why?

8. VTS asks 3 Questions What’s going on in this picture?
NAEA 08 Presentation: VTS + Middle School
VTS asks 3 Questions
After a moment of silent looking, ask:
What’s going on in this picture?
When an interpretive comment is made, follow up with:
What do you see that makes you say that?
Between comments, ask this frequently to the whole group, even when hands are raised:
What more can we find?
Gardner Museum and Lowe Art Museum programs 8

9. VTS Elements Art Images selected for the audience Peer group
Silent looking
3 Key Questions
What’s going on in this picture?
What do you see that makes you say that?
What more can you/we find?
Pointing
Paraphrasing
Neutrality
Linking Ideas
Conditional language

10. VTS asks Teachers to: Listen carefully to each comment
NAEA 08 Presentation: VTS + Middle School
VTS asks Teachers to:
Listen carefully to each comment
Point to features described in the artwork throughout the discussion
Paraphrase and accept neutrally all comments. New vocabulary and proper sentence structure may be modeled
Link related comments together to form connections and model building on the ideas of others
Gardner Museum and Lowe Art Museum programs 10

11. Listen to a VTS discussion in a Grade 4 Inclusion/ESL class
NAEA 08 Presentation: VTS + Middle School
Listen to a VTS discussion in a Grade 4 Inclusion/ESL class
What kinds of learning does VTS support?
What do you notice about the teaching?
Gardner Museum and Lowe Art Museum programs 11

12. VTS - Goals for Students
NAEA 08 Presentation: VTS + Middle School
To develop flexible and rigorous thinking skills, including observing, brainstorming, reasoning with evidence, speculating, cultivating a point of view, and revising.
To strengthen language and listening skills, including willingness and ability to express oneself, respect for the views of others and ability to consider and debate possibilities.
To develop visual literacy skills and personal connections to art, advancing one’s ability to to find meaning in diverse and complex art.
To nurture problem solving abilities, curiosity and openness to the unfamiliar.
To build self-respect, confidence and willingness to participate in group thinking and discussion processes.
Gardner Museum and Lowe Art Museum programs 12

13. VTS: Reasoning in a Social Context
Cognitive Cycle
Social Cycle
Making an
‘Argument’;
Stating an hypothesis
Communicating
Ideas
Listening
Making Inferences
Based on Evidence
Using New
Information Provided By Others
Critical
Evaluation
Making
Observations
Respectful
Debate
Re-framing
Assumptions &
Hypotheses
Looking Again

14. VTS: Reasoning in a Social Context
Critical Thinking Skills
Communicating
Ideas
Looking Again
Making
Observations
Making Inferences
Based on Evidence
Respectful
Debate
Listening
Re-framing
Assumptions &
Hypotheses
Using New
Information Provided By Others
Cognitive Cycle
Social Cycle
Making an
‘Argument’;
Stating an hypothesis
Critical
Evaluation
4. Revisions or expansion of evidence-based arguments.
3. Speculation (predictions) based on evidence.
2. Inferences based on evidence (supported observations).
1. Observations: noticing details (clues)
In a mass of information; seeing connections.

15. Multiple Studies Find VTS Significantly Increases Critical Thinking
Year Source Finding
2002 Housen 5 year longitudinal, controlled study shows
Arts and Learning Journal VTS significantly increases critical thinking.
Critical thinking transfers to other topics.
2002 Harvard Project Zero VTS significantly increases critical thinking.
(New York study for MoMA)
2005 Curva & Assoc, Artful VTS significantly increases critical thinking.
Citizenship Evaluation (Miami study for The Wolfsonian)
Funded by the Federal Department of Education
2006 ILI Thinking through Art VTS significantly increases critical thinking.
Evaluation (Boston study for the Gardner Museum)
Funded by the Federal Department of Education

16. US Dept. of Education Funded Study of VTS
“This study shows that VTS integrating art into the curriculum is not just ‘art for art’s sake’, but clearly contributes to students’ critical thinking and measurable academic achievement thinking as well. In fact, it would not be surprising to find that such curricular ‘enhancements’ may be the best test preparation the schools can provide”[1]
[1] US Dept. of Education funded Program Evaluation Report, Artful Citizenship
Project, The Wolfsonian, Inc., conducted by Curva & Assoc. (2005)

17. Aesthetic Development
Language Development
Critical Thinking Skills
Social and Emotional Development
Sense of Self as part of a Community
Sense of Self as Learner
Next time = plant image selection seeds from beginning

18. “Art affords an ideal environment for [fostering critical and creative thinking]. It provides an object of collective attention—something concrete for a classroom to observe and experience, provoking thoughts and feelings while at the same time generating simultaneous and distinctive meanings.”
Art Viewing and Aesthetic Development: Designing for the Viewer

19. VTS Professional Development Overall Objectives
NAEA 08 Presentation: VTS + Middle School
VTS Professional Development Overall Objectives
To introduce Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) discussion method and the data behind it
To practice and reflect on VTS through discussion
To use coaching as a way of understanding VTS and examining teaching among peers
To reflect on the learning behaviors encouraged by VTS and assess change in students
To address the logistics of implementing VTS in the classroom
To expand one’s own experience and comfort with viewing art
Gardner Museum and Lowe Art Museum programs 19

20. VTS Professional Development
What training is necessary to learn to do VTS?
VTS is typically implemented as a school-wide program with the support of an image curriculum for each grade level (K-8) and 3 years (30+ hours) of professional development for teachers.
Individual teachers may also learn VTS through 2 and 4 day workshops.

21. For More Information
vtsweb.org – we’ve provided you with a subscription to our on-line curriculum and support site for teachers.
Username: nycspeced
Password: nycspeced
VTS Resources Page for Participants:

22. Writing Samples as Assessment
The following writing samples were collected from students before their first VTS lesson of the year, and then again after their last VTS lesson of the year.
The students write about an image that they have never discussed as a group.
We ask teachers using VTS in grades 2 and up (and to take dictation from 3 students in K-1) to collect these samples as way to examine student growth in critical thinking.

23. Grade 4 Pre & Post VTS Writing Sample
I see clouds in the sky. I see a lady sitting
and staring. I see a little girl carrying some
flowers. I see a little boy. I think I see Santa.
I see another boy carrying a bucket.
Post
I think the girl in the hat is probably posing to
take a picture. I see a little girl holding a
basket full of pink, white flowers. I also see a
little boy dressed as he was in [karate?].
Since people are dressed up in different things
it might be Halloween. I think it is Christmas
‘cause I see a man dressed like Santa Claus
and the people are dressed very nice. Maybe
somebody is getting married because I see a
little girl holding a basket full of flowers.
Source: San Antonio three-year VTS study in an “at risk” population of low income, largely Hispanic students.

24. Second Grade Pre-Test

25. Second Grade Post-Test

26. Second Grade Post-Test
I think the girl is sick because there is medicine by her bed. I think she loves God because she has a cross and a picture of God on her dresser. She likes to sew because sewing supplies are on the dresser. She loves flowers because she has flowers in her bedroom. She likes to listen to music because she has a radio. She has slippers because the floor is cold. Her mother is putting leaves to help her get well. It is night time because the sky is dark. She has glasses so she can see better. She loves to dance because she has dancing clothes. She loves her pictures because they are on the wall with a cross in the middle of the picture.
Second Grade Post-Test
(corrected for spelling)

27. Fifth Grade Pre-Test

28. Fifth Grade Post-Test

29. (corrected for spelling)
What I think is going on in this picture is one day a young girl was getting ready for something big, but she got sick so her mother and brother take care of her. She has to take lots of medicine to get better. Her mother gets things for the young girl.
Her mother gets a humidifier and puts it at the foot of the girls bed. The mother also gets medication for the girl. The mother also waves her with a branch of leaves to cool her, while the young girl lays in her bed.
I think the young brother keeps her company when no one is in the room. What the mother must of done is move the young girl into the mother’s room. I think this because of the room the family’s in is set up like a parent’s room.
I also think the people in the pictures have died. They also must of died of the same sickness the daughter has at the time. Family must of dropped off flowers because theirs flowers on the dresser. The sickness must be major.
Fifth Grade Post-Test
(corrected for spelling)

30. Visual Understanding in Education
Contact Us
Visit VTS on the web at
Contact us at 718/
Amy Chase Gulden, Regional Director NY
VTS has offices in Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Boston. The VTS program is used in 20 states reaching over 50,000 young people through schools and museums.
Visual Understanding in Education