Day 141 MIT Sloan Fellows Class 2023, The art of leading 3 "Visual Thinking Strategies: VTS"

Concepts

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a teaching method that promotes critical thinking, communication, and visual literacy skills by encouraging students to examine and analyze visual art or other images. Developed by cognitive psychologist Abigail Housen and museum educator Philip Yenawine in the 1990s, VTS is used in a variety of educational settings, including schools, museums, and other institutions.

The core elements of VTS include:

Facilitation: The facilitator (usually a teacher, educator, or museum docent) encourages students to closely examine a carefully chosen work of art or image. The facilitator remains neutral and non-judgmental, allowing participants to take ownership of their ideas.
Open-ended questions: The facilitator uses three primary open-ended questions to guide the discussion:
1. "What's going on in this picture?"
2. "What do you see that makes you say that?"
3. "What more can we find?"
Paraphrasing: The facilitator actively listens to the students' responses and paraphrases them to confirm their understanding and validate the students' observations. This process helps create a safe environment for sharing ideas and encourages further participation.
Connecting ideas: The facilitator helps students make connections between their observations and interpretations, deepening their understanding and promoting critical thinking.
Time: VTS discussions usually last between 20-30 minutes, allowing ample time for students to observe, think, and articulate their thoughts.

Benefits of Visual Thinking Strategies:

Develops critical thinking skills: VTS encourages students to think deeply about the visual content, make inferences, and support their interpretations with evidence.
Enhances communication skills: Students learn to articulate their thoughts, listen actively to others, and engage in respectful discussions.
Fosters visual literacy: VTS helps students develop the ability to interpret, analyze, and appreciate visual information, an essential skill in today's media-rich world.
Supports diverse learners: VTS is an inclusive teaching method that engages students with diverse learning styles, backgrounds, and abilities.
Encourages collaboration: VTS fosters a collaborative learning environment where students build on each other's ideas and learn from different perspectives.

Three questions

What's going on in this picture?
What do you see that makes you say that?
What more can we find

A good facilitator point out a good point, understand a variety of ideas, synthesize multiple opinions, pick up some insights and highlight a broad direction.

This is how to expand the thinking from individual to group thinking.

Fundamental Rules

Be open and secure psychological safety ( "Is anyone a professional of arts or crafts? No one there? OK that's a good thing.")
Unfix your thinking (solution finding vs problem framing.)
Insights before conclusion

Ladder of inference

Stages of the Ladder of Inference:

Observing data and experiences: We start by observing data or experiences directly, without any interpretation or judgment. This is the raw information we take in from the world around us.
Selecting data: Out of all the available data, we unconsciously select certain pieces to focus on, often based on our biases, past experiences, or beliefs.
Assigning meaning: We interpret the selected data by attaching meaning to it.
Making assumptions: We start making assumptions based on the meaning we've assigned to the data.
Drawing conclusions: We draw conclusions based on our assumptions and interpretations.
Adopting beliefs: We form beliefs based on our conclusions, which in turn shape our worldview.
Taking action: Our beliefs influence the actions we take, which can then reinforce our initial assumptions and beliefs, creating a reinforcing loop.

Here is the example of 7 steps.

Observing data and experiences: You see a colleague walking past you without saying hello.
Selecting data: You remember that your colleague ignored you yesterday as well.
Assigning meaning: You think your colleague is upset with you or doesn't like you.
Making assumptions: You assume that you must have done something to offend your colleague.
Drawing conclusions: You conclude that your relationship with your colleague is damaged, and they're deliberately ignoring you.
Adopting beliefs: You believe that your colleague is not a friendly person and is difficult to get along with.
Taking action: You start avoiding your colleague, which makes them feel ignored and reinforces their own belief that you don't like them.

This process may create reinforcing cycle to increase the bias.

The important practices to avoid this are