Description
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a New York City-based arts education organization. Our mission is to transform the way teachers teach and students learn through programs based in theory and research that use discussions of visual art to increase student engagement and performance. VTS is both a teaching method - used in museums across the country and around the world - as well as an art-discussion curriculum we train classroom teachers to use with their students to build visual literacy, critical thinking, and language fluency.
VTS was developed in the 1990’s by Philip Yenawine, former Director of Education at MoMA, as well as of programs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and Abigail Housen, a Harvard-trained cognitive psychologist whose research yielded a Theory of Aesthetic Development. Yenawine celebrates the success of VTS in the hands of classroom teachers in his new book, Visual Thinking Strategies: Using Art to Deepen Learning Across School Disciplines, released by Harvard Education Press this October.
Today VTS is used in museums, schools and universities across the country and internationally. VTS has Regional Programs in: Boston & New England, New York City & State, Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. In the 2012-13 school year we trained and coached 600 teachers on-site in 65 schools, directly benefitting more than 11,000 children. We partnered with over 45 museums nationwide. In addition, we held 35 training events in the US and Europe which were attended by over 1,100 VTS practitioners.
