Uncovering OASIS: Critical Thinking Made Transparent in a Student Residency Program
Theresa Sotto, Assistant Director of Academic Programs, Hammer Museum
How can I encourage students to slow down and look closely at works of art? How can I challenge them to think critically about what they see?
Fourth grader Stacy is looking up from her journal, thoughtfully contemplating artist Jennifer Bornstein’s Trench Coat after spending time recording her observations visually and in words. Like many of her peers, she noticed various aspects of the artwork — everything from the buttons and the belt, to the prominent blue color and the types of lines that comprise the depiction of the coat. The work had piqued her curiosity. She quietly wrote questions in her journal: Why did the artist pick blue? How did they do it? Why is this art?
After Stacy’s class listed several questions, I told them that I had some information that might help them answer their questions, but that they could also turn to their own observations and inferences. I shared with students that Bornstein had created this rubbing of her deceased father’s coat after she had purchased it from her stepmother’s eBay store. Stacy spent some time reflecting and then answered her own question about the color. Perhaps Bornstein selected the color blue “because she feels blue in the inside and her skin — it’s still white or brown.” By now, she had been observing, drawing, and analyzing this one work of art for 40 minutes. And she still had several questions that had yet to be answered.
Stacy had just completed a thinking routine called OASIS (Observe–Ask–Select–Infer–Support), which is a strategy I devised for a five-day student residency program at the Hammer Museum at UCLA. This program, Classroom-in-Residence at the Hammer (CRH), is designed to strengthen student and teacher learning about art through an immersive experience at the Museum. Outside of their traditional classroom, 4th-6th grade students are inspired in new ways; they make cross-curricular connections through visual art and dance, explore their own curiosities about works of art, and experiment with art projects influenced by their experiences in the galleries. The program is a collaboration between the Hammer Museum, the Visual and Performing Arts Education Program (VAPAE) in UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture, and selected classroom teachers. Through this partnership, CRH students and teachers have unprecedented access to university and museum resources and expertise.
While planning for CRH, I was challenged to consider how students could best utilize their time in the galleries. How can I encourage students to slow down and look closely at works of art? How can I challenge them to think critically about what they see? CRH’s multi-day format provided a unique opportunity for learning to be scaffolded — and to hone students’ critical thinking skills over a five-day period. But what is the best strategy to accomplish this?
Critical thinking is often touted as a skill that is essential for success in the 21st century. Yet many students are not aware of the strategies they could employ to strengthen their critical thinking muscles and, as a result, are less effective learners and critical thinkers. Ron Ritchart and his colleagues at Harvard University’s Project Zero have long stressed the importance of being transparent with students about the thinking moves inherent to thinking processes. In the book Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners, Ritchart et al states:
As we make thinking — our own as well as that of our students — visible, we draw attention to the mechanisms by which individuals construct their understanding. To the extent that students can develop greater awareness of thinking processes, they became more independent learners capable of directing and managing their own cognitive actions (1).
To help students demystify the thinking process and structure their own thoughts, the authors recommend using thinking routines — short step-by-step procedures that support and deepen students’ thinking. Just like any other routine, such as brushing one’s teeth before bedtime, a thinking routine can become a disposition if completed with enough frequency. Ritchart et al maintain that students who regularly practice thinking routines are able to internalize what learning is and how learning happens.
Landing on OASIS
In CRH, students utilize the same thinking routine to explore a different artwork every day. I wanted this routine to accomplish several goals: emphasize close-looking and evidence-based reasoning, address Common Core literacy standards, proactively encourage students to ask and answer their own questions, and provide opportunities for the educator to guide the discussion and share pertinent information that cannot be inferred through observation. I also wanted a strategy that was flexible enough that it could be used in whole group discussions or completed independently.
Two tried-and-true strategies used widely by museum educators accomplish some, but not all, of my goals: Project Zero’s popular thinking routine See-Think-Wonder (STW) and Philip Yenawine and Abigail Housen’s Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) both emphasize close-looking, but they allow the observations and ensuing thoughts to unfold organically. Open-ended discussions have many advantages, but what if an educator is incorporating a work of art into a tour on narrative? How could the educator guide the conversation towards an analysis of character and plot while still leading an inquiry-based discussion?
Additionally, VTS may encourage evidence-based reasoning and thus addresses Common Core standards, but what if a student has a burning question that a knowledgeable teacher or a gallery label could quickly answer before students proceed to answering more challenging, open-ended questions? What if an educator knows key facts about an artist’s process that, if shared, would help deepen students’ understanding of an object but decides to withhold this information to stick to the VTS script? If students rely solely on their observations of an object, how can they learn how to integrate information from different contexts, and how can an educator incorporate information that cannot be obtained from observation alone? Finally, how can students be encouraged to cultivate their own curiosities? Although STW does encourage students to ask questions, it leaves them wondering and does not provide steps to help them answer their own questions.
A colleague pointed me towards Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana’s trademarked Question Formulation Technique (QFT), a step-by-step protocol for facilitating the asking of questions. The details of each step of QFT cannot be adequately articulated within the space of this article (2); however, in essence QFT is designed to help students learn to develop, improve, and prioritize their own questions to “become independent thinkers and self-directed learners” (3).
Culling from the aspects of QFT, STW, and VTS that were useful in reaching my goals, I developed a strategy that also has a conveniently memorable acronym — OASIS. Similar to STW and VTS, OASIS begins with close looking as the foundation for interpretation and insights. Like VTS, OASIS encourages evidence-based reasoning. And like QFT, OASIS invites students to honor their own curiosities by prompting them to develop a list of questions and then think carefully about which questions to explore further.
OASIS challenges students to 1) observe a work of art through observational drawing and written or oral descriptions, 2) ask questions about what they see, 3) select questions to investigate further, 4) infer the answers to their questions based on visual evidence, and 5) support their inferences by specifically identifying the evidence.
Observe
OASIS begins with observation, but differs from VTS and STW in its use of drawing as an observation tool. I incorporated observational drawing after having conversations with colleagues in UCLA’s VAPAE program about how students are better able to focus and notice often overlooked details if given the time to visually represent what they see. After drawing, students are then asked to share what they see using words. This two-step observation process ensures that students take the time to gather as much information as possible before jumping to conclusions about what they think is happening in an artwork.
Ask
In this step, students are challenged to ask all of their questions about an artwork before answering a single one. Listing all of their questions gives them an opportunity to practice divergent thinking, the ability to think creatively and generate a broad range of possibilities.
According to Warren Berger, a journalist who researched hundreds of the world’s most innovative companies and leaders, asking questions is the key to innovation. Yet, as Berger points out, “teachers and bosses generally want answers, not questions.” QFT and OASIS both emphasize the importance of self-directed learning by shifting the dynamic of the classroom — students are empowered to ask and answer their own questions rather than simply responding to the questions crafted by their teachers.
I encourage students to ask questions about anything. What are they curious about? What don’t they understand? At this stage students should not critique any of their questions, and educators should honor and value all questions equally. Rothstein and Santana stress that teachers should not give examples of questions so as not to influence the types of questions students develop. Instead, the authors suggest that teachers remind students that questions begin with what, why, or how (4). I think it’s helpful to provide examples of question groupings to aid students in thinking of what types of questions are possible. If students get stuck thinking of questions to ask, you could remind them that there are many ways to explore artworks, and they are welcome to ask questions related to the subject, object, context, or their personal response (5).
After students have had sufficient time to develop a list of questions, the educator can use the questions to gauge student understanding and interest. The educator may also decide to provide information pertaining to students’ questions that could not be ascertained through observation or inference. In the example I provided at the beginning of this article, many students had questions about why the artist made the rubbing of the trench coat. By sharing background information that I knew, students gained new insight into the artist’s intention that they could not have known using only their eyes.
Select
At this point in the process, students have spent a significant amount of time observing and wondering about one work of art. They can now turn to thinking carefully about their questions and deciding which ones to answer (6). In this step, students are practicing two important thinking abilities — convergent thinking (the ability to analyze and synthesize a range of information and ideas while moving toward a conclusion) and metacognition (the ability to think about and describe one’s own thinking and learning) (7).
Educators can help guide the question selection process based on their curricular goals. If the goal is simply for students to enhance their evidence-based reasoning skills, students can be instructed to choose their most challenging, open-ended questions or the questions that they are most interested in dissecting in small groups. If the focus is narrative, the educator could tell students to select the most pressing questions related to what is happening in the work. Regardless of the rationale for the selection process, students should be able to articulate why they selected particular questions.
Rothstein and Santana state, “The act of prioritization — the ability to assign importance properly — is an intellectual task involving a wide range of skills, including comparison, categorization analysis, assessment, and synthesis” (8). Moreover, by assessing and categorizing their questions, students are given the unique opportunity to direct how they choose to spend their time.
Infer and Support
In the OASIS framework, students both shape the line of questioning and, for the most part, supply the knowledge to answer questions through their own observations. In these steps, students infer answers to their selected questions based on supporting evidence. Because students must identify what evidence supports their inferences, they are addressing an important skill referenced in the Common Core literacy standards — evidence-based reasoning.
Depending on educators’ goals, students could provide evidence obtained solely by looking at an object. Or, if interested in having students practice synthesizing information, educators could share a video revealing how an object was made or an article describing its historical context. When students are inferring the answers to their questions, they could pull from various sources to support their answers.
Even closed questions can lead to new discoveries and teachable moments. For example, if a student is curious about when an artwork was made or its title, this would be a useful occasion to explain the format and content of gallery labels or encourage them to conduct research about the types of clothing worn by people in portraits.
Using OASIS with 4th-6th Grade Students
OASIS is designed to be a flexible framework. It can be completed through whole class discussion, small group work, independent practice, or a combination of all three. Students could use journals to complete each step, or jot down their observations and questions on post-its that the educator then arranges on chart paper. At any point in the process, the educator can ask students to share out. If using OASIS for the first time, it’s best to incorporate whole group discussions between steps so that students learn from one another’s ideas and get accustomed to the challenge of asking and answering their own questions. By their definition, thinking routines are repeated, and thus students can use them with increasing independence over time. On the first day of Classroom-in-Residence at the Hammer, students were guided to complete OASIS with one work of art simultaneously. By the fifth day, they could select the work of art they wished to investigate and completed the routine on their own.
During the 2014–2015 program year, WestEd conducted an independent evaluation of the CRH program which concluded that students showed growth in their ability to provide evidence for their assertions. According to the study, students learned to conduct deep examinations of an artwork, ask questions and make inferences, and provide evidence for their inferences. In fact, students not only increased their ability to identify evidence, but they also increased their ability to verbally explain and conceptually understand the evidence. One participating teacher stated:
The strategies we learned and used in the galleries and the classroom made them think in a different way, give answers in a different way…it wasn’t hands shooting up to be the first one to provide an answer, any answer, it was a deep examination of what they thought and why they thought it.
The OASIS framework provided CRH students with a step-by-step process for identifying the thinking moves that are necessary for thinking critically about works of art. Because students had the opportunity to incorporate these thinking moves into a routine, over time their reflections about art became more nuanced, their responses increased in length, and the types of observations and questions they noted became more diverse. Moreover, students were deeply engaged with artworks while completing OASIS — and for a sustained period of time.
After CRH ended, one teacher stated that the OASIS steps had become “a part of [the] classroom routine” in inquiry-based discussions that included but were not specific to arts-integrated lessons. Students were able to transfer their skills to other disciplines, evidence that the thinking routine had become a disposition.
Engaging students in the rigorous work of observation, evidence-based reasoning, asking good questions, and proactively seeking the answers to their own questions is not only important for preparing students to be successful in the 21st century; it is essential in our society regardless of the century. Rothstein and Santana stated:
Even in our democratic society, we have not done a particularly good job of investing in developing our citizens’ ability to think independently and ask their own questions. We need to make a stronger, more deliberate effort to build the capacity of all our citizens to think for themselves, weigh evidence, discern between fact and myth, discuss, debate, analyze, and prioritize (9).
If museum educators can teach students to wonder what if, to prioritize, and to make decisions based on informed critical thinking, then we are cultivating citizens who can actively, creatively, and thoughtfully contribute to society.
However, the use of thinking routines requires the time to repeat them. According to a recent study by Randi Korn & Associates on single-visit programs in museums, “critical thinking rises to the top as the outcome that museums most often aspire to achieve.” Yet most students who are given the opportunity to visit an art museum in a given year will spend no more than an hour in the galleries (10). Is one hour a realistic amount of time to achieve any impact on students’ thinking? If we really want to enhance students’ critical thinking skills, should our field re-think the amount of resources we provide for our most attended offering for K-12 audiences — our single-visit programs? Given our collective potential for impacting society, it’s worth considering.
Theresa Sotto
Theresa Sotto is assistant director of Academic Programs, where she oversees educational programming for college, family, and K-12 school and teacher audiences. Theresa has been working at the crossroads of education and the arts since 2001. Prior to joining the Hammer, she has held positions at the Getty Museum, the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and has served as a consultant for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.
Footnotes
(1) Ritchart, Church, & Morrison, 2011, p. 22.
(2) For a good overview of QFT, see “Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions” in Harvard Education Letter.
(3) Rothstein & Santana, 2015, p. 3.
(4) Rothstein & Santana, 2015, p. 69.
(5) Charman, Rose, & Wilson, 2006, p. 57.
(6) QFT includes a step focused on improving students’ questions. I preferred to forego an explicit step focused on question improvement in order to honor all students’ questions.
(7) Rothstein & Santana, 2015, p. 16.
(8) Rothstein & Santana, 2015, p. 88.
(9) Rothstein & Santana, 2015, p. 153.
(10) Korn and Associates, Inc., 2015.
References
Charman, H., Rose, K., & Wilson, G. (Eds.). (2006.) The Art Gallery Handbook: A Resource for Teachers. London: Tate Publishing.
Korn and Associates, Inc. (2015, March). Summary of Results Survey of Single-visit K-12 Art Museum Programs. Prepared for the National Art Education Association and Association of Art Museum Directors. Retrieved from http://www.arteducators.org/community/2015_RKA_NAEA_AAMD_SurveyofField_Summary.pdf.
Ritchart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Rothstein, D. & Santana, L. (2011, September/October). Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions: One small change can yield big results. Harvard Education Letter 27.5, 1–2. Retrieved from: http://hepg.org/hel-home/issues/27_5/helarticle/teaching-students-to-ask-their-own-questions_507
Rothstein, D. & Santana, L. (2011). Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press.
