Now that we have a sense of what inquiry based teaching practice looks like, and its benefits for teaching and learning, we're gonna break down the process of facilitating an inquiry based conversation through some examples. Before we begin a conversation, we need to make sure to give the students time to look and observe the artwork. The idea of giving students time and tools to look on their own may seem obvious or unnecessary but one of the biggest challenges that teachers often tell me they have with their students is getting them to slow down and really look at a work of art. Often, teachers tell me it's hard for them to stand by in silence while those students are doing close looking. I can definitely relate to being uncomfortable with the silence but that goes away quickly. The more time students have to look, the more comfortable they will be sharing their ideas. If you don't get them to take the time to observe, then they won't have much to share. The first step, let them spend some time looking without any kind of prompting. I have a couple of different ways that I like to start this process. Sometimes, I just have the students look in silence and other times, I like to have them look closely as a group without me facilitating at all. For those of you that teach younger students, you might find that having them sit quietly is more challenging. Here at the museum, students are often full of energy and ready to jump in shouting out things that they see but I still want them to look closely. For the younger kids, using a viewfinder is a great way to help them focus their looking so that they can observe details, and also gives them a tool to physically engage with, which allows them to use that extra energy they have. Especially, when we're looking at composition that is more visually dense and complex, using a viewfinder helps students to refine the area that they are looking at. Being able to focus on smaller areas of the composition will actually allow them to take more visual information in. You can make a viewfinder with cardboard or any kind of heavyweight paper, or you can do what I do and use something you already have. I recycled old film slide holders as my viewfinders. You can even have your students just use their hands or any kind of object to obscure different parts of the image. Sometimes, having your students move in relationship to the object can also allow them to observe new or different details that they did not see before. I usually begin with the students fairly close to the object, then have them back up and get space to enable them to see things that they did not see previously and also allow them to see things differently. >> Let's try something. I want you guys to all carefully stand up for a second. Yeah. I want you guys to notice me but I want us to get space for a little bit because sometimes we are really too close to it, we might miss other details. Stay together, I want you guys to just step back a little bit because there's all sorts of details you might miss. I wanna give you guys a moment to get some get some space on it. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Yeah, so that's exactly what I thought might happen, when you get a little space sometimes, you can see things. Do you guys see that there? >> I noticed something. >> Yeah, what did you notice? >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Yeah, so isn't that interesting? No, but that's very true. Sometimes when you look at things, especially when they're smaller, things get kind of compressed. I know it's funny, but it's true. You really get a sense, not only that, but look, did you guys notice, I never noticed this for a really long time. He's got kinda like a little bump there, did you guys see that? >> [INAUDIBLE] >> I was teaching with this group for the longest time before I actually knew that. So the more we look at things, the more details that we notice. You guys have very good observation skills, every single one of you. >> Once this becomes a regular part of your classroom practice, your students will become experts in close looking. The next step in the inquiry process is to get a discussion started with your students grounded in their observations. To focus students attention and start the discussion, use open-ended questions. What I mean by open-ended questions are questions that don't require a yes or no answer. These types of questions get the students comfortable generating their own ideas and making observations and even interpretations about what they see without needing any prior knowledge about the work of art. The more open-ended questions you ask, the more ideas your students will be able to generate. Open-ended inquiry also allows students to make personal understandings of the work, and generates deeper discussion. Questions that are too specific and only allow for one correct response are what we call convergent questions. When you use only convergent type questions, the conversation does not build and your students end up memorizing facts and not gaining any real understanding. Use open-ended questions. They invite multiple responses, they encourage close looking and critical thinking. Here are some examples of convergent questions. What color is this? What is the subject thinking in this painting? Here are those same questions translated into divergent or open-ended inquiry. How would you describe this color? What might the subject be thinking? Once your students have some time to look on their own, start the conversation with an initial open-ended observational type question such as, what do you notice? >> We're gonna look at a sculpture today by George Segal. I want you to take some time to really look at the whole work from the bottom all the way to the top. Then just tell me what you what you notice about the sculpture. What are some things that you noticed? >> It's old-fashioned. Like it's, it looks like an older bus. >> It looks like an older bus? What made you say that? >> Cuz of the toll? I think that's what it's called. If you compare this to the buses nowadays, it definitely doesn't look like that. >> So the detail objects. >> Yeah. >> What are some other things that you noticed? >> It's like a moment frozen in time, in a way, just showing that specific moment and just driving the bus. Maybe it's a moment he has to himself. >> Something that's frozen. What did you notice about his facial expression? >> He's very serious, in a way. >> Are there other words you might use to describe him? >> He looks kind of bored even, like he's doing his thing. >> Okay, bored, serious. >> He looks like he has something on his mind. >> What should suggested that to you? >> Just his facial expression in general. It's not the happiest facial expression that a person can have, so it seems like he's thinking about something. We're noticing a lot of different things about him. Are there things that we might be able to guess about this man based on what we see? >> I think maybe he's been working for a while because of the body language he's giving us. He's slinched over, he doesn't look like he just started working and he's fresh. Great, so his body language really communicates this idea that he's been doing this a long time. >> He's not really happy with his job as a bus driver. >> Is that coming from the body language or is there something else that's expressed? >> Facial expression and his body language together. >> We knew pretty quickly he was a bus driver from the details, from the objects that the sculpture is made out of. >> He looks kind of bored because of his posture. If he were more excited, he would probably be sitting up straight. He's bored, frozen in time. What do you imagine happening around him even though George Segal is only showing us this part of the scene? >> Movement, a lot of movement. >> As you're facilitating the conversation, make sure to solicit several responses to each question by using wait time and follow-up questions. Example, what else do you notice? What else do you see? You can also ask clarifying questions to guide students to give specific, detailed descriptions. An example of a clarifying question is, what do you see that makes you say that? Once you get a lively discussion going using open-ended questions, make sure to validate your students' responses and keep them focused by restating their responses to the group. You should also make sure to have your students back up their interpretations with evidence from the artwork. Troubleshooting tip. If you are worried that you'll only hear from the same three to four students in the group conversation, you can also have your students first share their ideas with a partner through what we call Turn & Talk or Pair Share. Oftentimes, when I do this, it gets those more shy and quiet students ready to share in a larger group. As the conversation builds, you can add different types of open-ended questions to support their observations, activate prior knowledge, and also for synthesis. Here are some examples of other types of open-ended questions. Here is an example of an observation question, what do you notice? What do you see? Here's an example of a prior knowledge type question. Does this image remind you of anything in your own life? Here's an example of a synthesis type question. What does this artwork tell us about the time and place it was made in? Information is another tool that you can use in the conversation to help guide students and push their observations further. When relevant information that supports their observations is introduced in small amounts, it allows students to make connections and to consider new ideas. >> All of those different sounds that you guys just talked about, and all of the different elements that you guys just talked about, all kinda add up to the story about what's going on >> This particular painting is called Sleeping Gypsy, and it was painted by a man named Henri Rousseau. The painter who lived in France never actually left his hometown but he was really interested in far away places, so he would create these paintings. This montage, this kind of a group in his mind of different ways, and he would put that together into his paintings. They're not necessarily real places but they're these things kind of like dreams, kind of like thoughts in his mind. >> The information can be as simple as the title, the date and the artist who created it. It can also be information about the artist's process or about the context or time period in which the work was made. It's really important to not give them all the information up front but slowly start to layer the information in. This will leave room for the students' interpretations and ideas in the conversation. It's always good to research the object you are teaching with but to only select the information that you think will move the conversation forward and deepen your students' understanding. In the final week of the course, we will explore different types of information in more depth. I hope this week's lecture was informative and helpful. Next week, we are going to continue our exploration of inquiry and expand it to include examples of multi modal activities, things like writing and drawing that can also be used as a form of inquiry
