confidence and general Oracy skills in Art for students in 7X3?

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?

T h e i s s u e :

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.

R e s e a r c h :

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.

An initial Oracy questionnaire was given to 7X3 to understand their thoughts and feelings related to speaking and listening and take the temperature of the group . (Kindly adapted from Moira Henderson’s version )The headline figures were not all together unexpected.

➢ 75% of students did not feel confident or would never speak up. ➢ However 50% felt confident with friends and 92% listened to friends and responded. ➢ 80% hated being put on the spot by the teacher ➢ A staggering 88% said they would rather write ideas down on paper. ➢ Only 19% felt safe to speak out without fear of ridicule.

This last figure was worrying and so I proposed to try to build a safe space by discussing oracy more explicitly, encouraging active listening by watching the Feast video and setting some class rules for talk. To address the dislike of being put on the spot, I proposed to use post-it notes for students to write their ideas down first before using the cold calling strategy. I tried to build discussion into the lessons using the ‘I see, I think, I wonder’ format to talk about interesting and thought provoking paintings. During lockdown I had already trialled this in an online lesson with yr 7 and had found that even in the chat function the format, particularly the I wonder questions, provoked some thoughtful ideas.

I m p l e m e n t a t i o n :

23rd April- We began with peer discussion and post- it’s to decide group oracy rules and how to be an active listener. I also introduced the idea of Agree, Build, Challenge, to respond to each other’s ideas. We looked at Munch’s painting, the Separation, which lent itself well to discussion. (I see, I think, I wonder format was on the PP on the board). After 5 minutes for thinking time using the Post-It notes, I was surprised to see so many hands up wanting to participate. Students expressed different interpretations of the painting and were able to say ‘I agree with’ or ‘I disagree with’, depending on their ideas about the image. A normally very quiet Sen student gave a very eloquent description of what he thought was happening in the painting. Overall, I felt the session had gone positively and several students spoke who would not have normally. (Post it notes with student ideas below).

Several activities were carried out in the following weeks as students got used to the I think, I see, I wonder format . One week I tried to focus solely on enjoyment and used a pair work activity where one student

described a picture and the other had to draw it from the instructions. However, the pictures were not all kept secret and it did not quite work as planned. (This had previously worked well with yr 10).

Transcript Excerpt Discussion 7X3

Student A: I wonder if the one on the right is trying to save the one on the left?

Student B: I think one of the women is the more perfect twin, the one in the blue and brown dress., because the other one looks like she is bleeding.

Student B: Going back to what student A said, the one in blue is probably saving the one in the bright dress.

A Lesson in May: The following transcript is from hand written notes made at the time in class to document a discussion in a starter activity based on the painting ‘The Two Frida’s’ by Mexican Artist Frida Kahlo. I chose the painting as it is visually arresting, and multi-layered

Student D: She has given half her heart to the other girl because she might be dying.

Student E(SEN): What if it is more of a metaphor? Maybe the girl in the blue dress is more heartless.

Other comment…..then

Student F: About what E said,I agree because her heart looks like it’s stone and the red is sharing her passion for life.

Student G: I wonder why their hearts are attached? I agree with F who said she has a heart of stone.

The success of the discussion seemed to come partly from the fact that the image was thought provoking and open to interpretation. I was heartened to see that after reminders for Agree, Build, Challenge, students listened more actively and were able to build on each other’s ideas. My role in the discussion, was to repeat what each student has said out loud so that the whole class could hear (as many talk really quietly) and then designate the next person to speak. The time for preparation with the post-it notes, definitely seemed to have been positive in providing everyone with at least a small starting point to contribute. Some notes were quite detailed and even those who dislike writing were able to note down some key words to describe what was going on. One male student wrote: Women, unibrow, surgery, sister /twins/conjoined twins, which acted as a prompt at least for his verbal contribution.

Alexander (2017)* suggests, that dialogic teaching helps develop the core skills of listening, responding, forming questions, evaluating ideas, reasoning and justifying opinions. I feel that using the images for discussion I was beginning to see this in action .The ‘I see, I think, I wonder’ format, is a powerful tool to this end, leading to deeper and broader knowledge through observation and reasoned interpretation Amanda Burritt (2014 ). In fact, this thinking format can be applied to all parts of the curriculum and I have come across visual examples in practice of examining objects in science, exploring geographical knowledge, as well as its use in maths and history. Perhaps, other teachers at CEC, might also be interested in this as a crosscurricular strategy, for oracy and thinking?

See Think Wonder Applied to a science lesson .

https://thinkingpathwayz. weebly.com/seethinkwon der.htmlesson.

R e s u l t s

The implementation of the oracy activities were not fully consecutive over a six week period as originally planned. There was some change of teaching routines where 3 lessons were led by an NQT teacher. I feel that this break in the activities will have impacted the outcomes of the project. However, at the end of the time period I gave out the questionnaire for a second time to see if there were any significant changes in answers and how students were feeling.

This time, 58% of the class said they felt Ok or very confident when speaking in class. This was a positive increase from only 25% in the initial survey. There was also an increase (from 30% to 50% of students) who felt that talk was a way of helping them to refine and clarify their ideas and an increase in those who enjoyed sharing their point of view. A few more students said that they enjoyed discussing paintings and Art works, but apart from this, the number of students ticking the statements stayed about the same. Those that didn’t feel safe to speak out in class only decreased by 2 students (from 9 to 7). Consequently, I realise that building a safe environment, to ensure the trust and sense of community referred to earlier, will only happen over time and is a work in progress, especially with students that are anxious and timid by nature.

C o n c l u s i o n :

Students quickly became accustomed to the routine of ‘See, Think, Wonder’ and implementing specific oracy activities at the start or end of lessons, has had a positive effect on the confidence of some students. As a group (7X3) they have learned to listen to each other more, purposefully responding to the ideas of others, instead of just stating their own. Some of the discussions were quite animated and I think enjoyment helped build a positive atmosphere in the group. Confidence increased by giving them more thinking time and the possibility of writing down some ideas as a basis for talk.

In future lessons, I will build on the use of thinking partners for the I think section, which will also move away from just the written notes. As part of the orchestration of the discussion, more focus on ‘What do you see that makes you think that?’ will build on the idea of visual evidence and extend justifying and reasoning. Using the question ‘What are you going to remember about this art work?’ at the end of the discussion will also refocus the things that stand out for them.

There is still a lot of work to be done on Oracy ,however, I look forwards to using both ‘See, think, wonder’ and ‘Agree, Build, Challenge’ with other groups next year, aiming to increase the confidence of our students to voice their opinions, listening and responding purposefully to others. Arnott (2014) believes that “constructive conversation can only improve reading and writing skills”. Thus, exploratory talk becomes a powerful tool for increasing independent learning behaviour.

Bi b l i o g r a p h y :

Arnott, Nikki ( 2014) : Substantive Conversations – The importance of oracy in the classroom

Burritt, A ( 2014) See, think, wonder; Using the cultural collections to bring breadth

to education, University of Melbourne Collections, issue 15, December 2014

Eisner. E.W.(2014) The Art and the Creation of Mind, a curriculumjouney. files.wordpress.comnga.gov.audiovideo/teaching critical-thinking-through-art html

Gaunt, A. Stott, A. ( 2019)) Voice 21, Transforming Teaching and Learning through Talk

Harvard (2006) Artful Thinking

https://pz.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/ArtfulThinkingFinalReport-1.pdf

National Gallery of Scotland :https://www.nationalgalleries.org/learn/see-think-wonder

Stott, Alice ( 2019 ) Voice 21,Valuing Every voice

https://thinkingpathwayz.weebly.com/seethinkwonder