Helen Cater - What impact does using the strategy ‘I see, I think, I wonder’ over six weeks have on confidence and general Oracy skills in Art for students in 7X3? The issue: Wanting to continue with the oracy and literacy focus from last year, as a Department we had already identified a lack of confidence when students are discussing their own work or that of others. Starting with yr 7 students we proposed to work on oracy skills in order to build confidence as students’ progress throughout the school. This would take place alongside practical work and could be done in starters/plenaries, as well as questioning whilst working. I chose to work with 7X3 as it is a mixed ability group with a large proportion of shy, timid students who do not choose to participate voluntarily in class talk and seem to have some anxiety about voicing their thoughts. To complicate matters there would be additional challenges due to the Pandemic this year; group work was made impossible due to the Covid restrictions and forwards placement of desks. Wearing of masks in the classroom would impede the flow of talk and made it hard to hear what student were saying. This meant that audio files could not be easily recorded, in order to create transcripts to reflect on the progress of class discussions in a more detailed way.
Research: Eisner( 2014) champions the Arts within the current climate of standardizing educational structures to measure progress and promotes the Arts as a way to “afford opportunities to transform brains into minds”, shaping individuals and their thinking. A starting point for my focus on Oracy was also found in the ideas of Alice Stott (Voice 21), who stresses the need to create a culture where every voice is valued, believing that the benefits can be found across the curriculum. If we can place value on the ideas and opinions of the students, it not only contributes to their sense of self-worth but also builds a sense of community and belonging (Stott, Gaunt, 2021). Indeed, sharing ideas requires a level of trust in students which would need to be built on in the classroom. The online CPD Oracy Network event in March hosted by Amy Rose also served as a catalyst to my thinking and provided specific strategies to use that could be adapted to the Art classroom. ‘I see, I think, I wonder’ seemed an excellent way to discuss images and visual stimulus. What particularly resonated was the idea that of class talk is often based on a series of monologues, structured in the IRF format (Teacher initiates, Student Response, Feedback). Students rarely listen to and hardly ever respond to each other. From experience I have often found that they will just call out their ideas without any thought for what others are saying. Consequently, the teacher continually has to prompt, question and redirect the discussion. This means the teacher talks too much and works quite hard at sustaining the flow of talk. The ABC strategy of Agree, Build, Challenge (also mentioned by Amy Rose) offers a way of linking student contributions without total dependency on the teacher and aims to promote listening and respect of others ideas. It works on building ideas as a group and moves away from traditional class structures of IRF. I was very conscious of the disjointed nature of class talk in my own classes and desperately wanted to move away from this. Researching further, I found that the National Galleries of Scotland already use the strategy ‘I see , I think, I wonder ’ as a way of starting a conversion about Art and uses it as part of Gallery Education program with schools. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, also use this format to teach critical thinking through Art where students drive the conversation by voicing observations, thoughts and questions. The routine helps students reason with evidence, before questioning and investigating. The Educator asks,’ What do you see that makes you say that?’ in order for students to share interpretations grounded in evidence. The format used, stems from the Harvard project Artful Thinking (2006) which puts forward the idea that deeper, more purposeful and more thoughtful discussion, in turn leads to more independent learning behaviour. Generating more meaningful questions, leads to new understanding and moves from the merely descriptive to the analytical. 219
