What’s going on in this picture? What do you see that makes you say that? What more can you find?
These are the three simple yet thought-provoking questions that The New York Times Learning Network asks students every week during the school year in “What’s Going On in This Picture?”
On Sundays from September to May, The Learning Network posts an intriguing photograph without its caption and asks students to think critically about what they see. Then, on Mondays, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time, The Learning Network hosts a live, moderated student discussion with its partner organization, Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS).
Educators at VTS help select photographs and facilitate the conversation with students from around the world, using the online Comments section. Students continue to comment all week, and on Thursday afternoons, The Learning Network reveals the “back story” about the photo and what it depicts.
An accompanying teachers’ guide with five sections (“Warm-Up,” “Get to Know the Feature,” “In the Classroom,” “Try It in Your Classroom,” “Go Beyond the Feature”) walks through ways educators across subjects use “What’s Going On in This Picture?” with their students and helps teachers new to the feature get started using it in their own classroom.