Visual thinking strategies (VTS) help people learn to look at art from a critical observer perspective and to make evidence-based meaning for themselves. It is a fun, interactive and safe way to develop critical thinking, communication and observation skills.

Learning outcomes

• To experience a facilitated VTS session
• To discuss the potential benefits and issues with using VTS within workplace learning
• To discuss how VTS might be used to develop critical thinking, communication and observation skills

VTS is a method which is widely used among art museum educators and primary school teachers (in the USA) which uses art as a vehicle to develop critical thinking, communication and observation skills. VTS was developed as a process to assist a viewer’s aesthetic development - its primary purpose is to help people learn to look at art from a critical observer perspective and to make evidence-based meaning for themselves.

VTS lessons are designed to be carried out in a safe environment of group discovery. The facilitator poses a sequence of three open-ended questions about carefully selected, anonymous images of art works. These questions are: ‘What is going on here?’, ‘What do you see that makes you say that?’, and ‘What more can we find?’ The discussion allows learners to puzzle and construct meaning about the art works. The learners are given time and opportunity to build meaning one way and then another. They are also exposed to the thinking of their peers, which can accelerate shifts in their own thinking. Sessions generally use two to three works of art per lesson with discussion about each image lasting between 12 and 20 minutes.

VTS has been found to support the development of critical thinking, and the transfer of critical thinking beyond the original learning context. VTS has been included in the curriculum of a number of undergraduate health care professional programmes with the primary purpose of developing observational and communication skills. It has recently been introduced for second year students at the Auckland Pharmacy School and for pharmacy technicians at Auckland DHB