Sandvig 1

VTS video analysis Name: Jessica Sandvig

Total:________/24 points

Answer the following questions while watching the video…

1.) How did she get started with the activity? (3points)

The teacher used concrete behavior instructions to help prepare students for her lesson. She
instructed her students to use their eyes to look at the painting for 30 seconds. As she was
explaining that they would use their sense of sight, she also used her fingers to direct attention
to her eyes by pointing at them. Then she provided them with their lesson objective by
requesting that they take notice of what they see in their new painting, reminding them to pay
attention to the details and to use metacognitive skills as they reflected on what they observed.
At this time, she also directs their attention to the abstract concept of thinking by pointing both
her hands towards her forehead. Additionally, she explained that they should be quiet as they
make their observations because they are using their sense of sight, not their sense of hearing.

2.) What kinds of questions did she ask, how did she follow up? (3 points)

The teacher asked her students, “What do you notice?” After students shared their responses,
she repeated or rephrased their answers and guided the classroom’s attention to the
mentioned things using a pointer. She also asked her students, “What do you see that makes
you say that?” or “What do you see that makes you think that?” For example, after a student
shared that they saw clouds, the teacher asked them, “What makes you think that they could
be clouds.” A student responded with their prediction that, because they noticed that there
were dark clouds, they thought that it might start to rain. Students use their prior knowledge
and make connections across content curriculum. In this case, with the dark clouds, the student
was connecting it with their previous weather lesson in science.
In addition, the teacher also asks her students, “What else can we find?” This prompt
encourages students to look deeper at the painting. For some students, that may mean using
higher level thinking application skills and for others, it may mean appreciating things like color.
Regardless, these question prompts provide structure for all the students in the classroom and
meets the strengths that they already have.

3.) What kinds of thinking strategies were practiced by the students? (3 points)

Students practiced a lot of thinking strategies during their ‘Art Talk.’ For example, they
problem-solved, shared their wonderings, and made predictions and connections with their
prior knowledge. All the students were able to be a part of the discussion and share their ideas
because they used their visual skills to support their metacognitive skills to reflect what they
noticed.

Now process what you just saw and discuss the following questions at your table…
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4.) How could we connect this activity to the elements and principles? (5 points)

We could connect this ‘Art Talk’ activity by using the visual thinking strategies to help students
discuss the seven elements of art. For example, we can ask students what elements they see. If
students need help with naming line, color, value, shape, space and/or form we can provide
prompts and share our own thinking. We could ask, “What do you notice that makes your eyes
follow a direction? Then share our thinking out loud, “I see this zig-zag _____.” Then we could
encourage them to say line. We can scaffold learning by asking, “What do you see that adds
contrast and shows light?” If students have trouble answering with color, then we could share
our thinking. “I am observing our painting and I’m thinking that because the artist choose this
element, ________, I feel calm and cool.” If needed, the teacher can add, “Blue, green, and
purple are examples of _________.” Then the teacher could ask students what other elements
they can find. These prompts and sentence frames would provide structure similar to the ‘Art
Talk’ activity and would support students learning, sharing, and thinking.
In addition, we could connect this activity with the art principles by helping them use visual
thinking strategies as they make observations. For example, we can ask students what
principles of art they notice. We could scaffold learning to help students notice proportion,
movement, rhythm, unity, balance, variation, contrast, emphasis, repetition, and/or harmony.
We could share our thinking and comment on the scale in the painting. We can say, “I notice
that this painting has good _________because it looks real.” If needed the teacher can explain
that the sizes of the objects look correct in relationship to the other objects.
After reviewing elements and principles of art, we could play a game where students take turns
calling on other students to come up and use the pointer to show us an element or principle
that they can find. Then when they used the pointer to direct attention to the painting, they
would share what element or principle they noticed.

5.) What kinds of follow up or next step activities could we do after something like this? (5
points)

We could follow the ‘Art Talk’ activity and have students record their reflections. They could
use the question prompts and sentence frames to support their thinking. For example, they
could copy the sentence frame and write in their answer, “I noticed _dark clouds_ in our
painting.” Then they could copy the sentence frame and write their answers, “I saw dark clouds
that made me think __that it might rain.” In addition, the teacher could have them use the
sentence frame, “I also found ________.” Then the students could draw their own pictures
applying some of the elements and principles they noticed from the ‘Art Talk’ painting into their
own work. Afterwards, they could write a caption that explained how they modeled these
elements in their work. For example, they could write, “I used cool colors and good proportion
similarly to our ‘Art Talk’ painting.”
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6.) Elementary Ed. how could this be used cross curricularly? Art Ed. how could this transfer
into a project? (5 points)

The ‘Art Talk’ activity could be used to support language arts skills by having students write and
illustrate their own paintings. Students could work in small groups and create a fictional picture
book that incorporates the visual thinking strategies as the characters narrate their thinking.
This lesson could be tied to a social studies unit where students use visual thinking strategies to
engage in historical thinking. For example, we could use “Art Talk” to show students a piece of
art and then have them imagine that they live in this setting. Then we could read a historical
fiction picture book out loud, one that would connect our social studies objectives with our
painting and have students pretend that they are that person. Then we could ask students a
series of questions related to the historic event that the character from our book experienced,
and have students answer from the perspective of that character we asked them to pretend to
be. We could ask students to use the ‘Art Talk’ prompts to support their answers.
The ’Art Talk’ lesson could also connect with a science lesson where students would discuss the
water cycle and weather. Students could also use the painting to describe the ecosystem and
create an ecological pyramid that described the relationships between the organisms in their
ecosystem.
We could support students with visual thinking strategies to help them with a math lesson. For
example, students can apply math skills as they take a copy of the painting and create a grid
that they use to help them with determining the order they will use to recreate the art. We
could demonstrate how to use the grid drawing technique for their art by applying measuring
skills. Students will need to determine how large they want their grid squares and how many.
They will need to apply math skills to calculate their measurements.
Students can create a poem, inspired from the painting, and then perform the poem in small
groups with a music lesson.
The ‘Art Talk’ activity can be used to create a calming mood and support a physical education
mindfulness exercise where students practice deep breaths and do yoga, such as a tree pose.