Training Guide
Introduce the training. One tool of Practice-Based Facilitation is the use of modified visual thinking strategies (VTS). Today, participants will learn how to successfully apply VTS when working with visitors.
Demonstrate VTS. Ask participants to observe the image on Slide 3 silently. After approximately 1 minute, ask the following questions to the participants. Be sure to honor all ideas without judgement by not agreeing or disagreeing with any ideas, revoice ideas that are shared to ensure everyone can hear them and the ideas are clearly understood, and point to features in the image that are being discussed (or invite participants to come up and point to the image).
- What do you notice?
- What do you think is going on?
- What do you see that makes you think that?
- What more can we find?
*Note that we are not interested in having discussions about the science behind the images, we only want to focus the discussion on observing the image and the theories around it.
Introduce VTS. Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a structured way of facilitating discussions around
images that was developed for art museums to help visitors learn to observe, find meaning, and
support their ideas with evidence. Here we use VTS to explore a phenomenon depicted in an image to spark interest and lay the foundation for scientific explorations. VTS requires close observation and evidence-backed claims. To adapt this discourse tool for science exploration, the visual that the educator selects might be a still image, a video clip, or a live demonstration of a science phenomenon. It should prompt discussion about key ideas that are built upon during subsequent activities, or prompt questions that motivate further investigation. The modified VTS that we use includes four questions:
- What do you notice?
- What do you think is going on?
- What do you see that makes you think that?
- What more can we find?
When using VTS, it is important to
- Honor all ideas without judgement to avoid becoming the expert.
- Revoice or rephase ideas to ensure everyone in the group hears them and understands the idea and language being used.
- Point to features that are being observed.
Highlight that while it might be tempting to deviate from the four VTS questions, VTS should cycle through the four VTS questions until the facilitator is ready to move onto the next part of the facilitation.
Practice VTS. Invite each participant to lead a facilitation of VTS similar to how was demonstrated at the beginning of the training. Decide an order of volunteers to facilitate and show a new image for each participant to facilitate for 3-5 minutes for the rest of the group. Gently remind facilitators if they start to deviate from the VTS prompts or agree/disagree with ideas being shared to focus on observations of the group only.
Afterwards, discuss how it was facilitating VTS around an image and how the participants could apply VTS to their day-to-day facilitation or field trip programs.