The Role of Visual Thinking Strategies for Object-Based Learning in Science Education
Abstract
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) was originally developed for art museum educators as a way to broaden beyond lecture-based gallery teaching methods and to frame art appreciation as an exercise in close looking, relying on visual evidence to guide interpretation. Relying on data from an evaluation of The Wild Center's "VTS in Science" program, research considers the utility of VTS for science educators in museums and traditional classrooms, where VTS is relatively unknown. The Wild Center believes that the VTS in Science project will help science museums address a vital need for education that is interdisciplinary, integrated, and focused on fostering critical thinking, creativity, effective communication, and flexibility. Learning to communicate science is more complicated than educators mastering a body of knowledge; it requires they support diverse learners in a range of science practices so they can make meaning from their informal science learning experiences. This is where VTS comes in—it Visual Thinking Strategies also has the distinct advantage of training science educators - museum professionals and teachers - in a method that can be implemented to build skills among learners that are not focused on acquiring science content, but rather on critical thinking, asking good questions, and analyzing data for evidence.
Our research was driven by the question, How can training in art education pedagogy benefit science educators? To answer this more general question, we ask a specific one: How can Visual Thinking Strategies enhance science teaching? Drawing on interviews with staff and participants of The Wild Center's "VTS in Science" program, this research describes how science educators have adopted and innovated best practices for using VTS and explains what this makes possible for their work. By examining teachers' experiences across the VTS in Science program, we argue practicing VTS with art objects and incorporating VTS into science curriculum can increase science educators' comfort with the often uncertain process of scientific inquiry, giving them a tool to guide students through the process of looking closely and thinking critically about an object. We suggest familiarity with VTS can contribute to science educators' appreciation of, and facility with, learner-centered teaching philosophies.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMED23E0952D
- Keywords:
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- 0805 Elementary and secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0825 Teaching methods;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment;
- EDUCATION