Teaching Observation Skills in Middle School

How (and why) to get your students to truly look at art

Recently, I reviewed the Elements of Art with my seventh graders in preparation for a self-reflection and self-assessment activity. We began with a very short video about Line. As we watched, I was shocked by how much my students struggled to just watch. 

Their eyes darted around the room. Despite my kind reminders and prompting, their focus flitted about. They were unable to simply watch the video.

Have we really reached a point where even a 3-minute video won’t hold students’ attention?

This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this. Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that many students struggle to sustain their attention when watching videos of all kinds, in all subjects. Even when we are following video tutorials in guided lessons (in preparation for free choice work, which is always the goal in my class), I am frequently dismayed by how little time students spend actually watching the tutorials. 

How can they replicate what they haven’t seen?

The same is true in other subjects I teach. Students struggle to sustain engagement with novels, presentations by their peers, images, and anything else that requires them to take in information without simultaneously doing something.

While I have not measured or documented my students’ ability to sustain their focus during such activities, I feel fairly confident about my general conclusion that it has been in decline throughout most or all of my career.

With these thoughts swirling in my mind, I continued the lesson. But I had seen my students struggle, I needed to find a way to address it. How can we help students focus?

Observation - the act of focusing on something we see - is an essential skill for any artist. The Lincoln Centre Institute lists Noticing Deeply as the first of their ten Capacities for Imaginative Learning. In my previous, arts-based, setting, observation was a skill that was practiced in every subject and every grade level. I have watched countless students sit in front of a wide variety of pieces of art, and can attest to the increases in the quality of their noticings when they observed for longer periods of time per sitting and when they engaged in the act of observation on a regular basis.

I also know that in order to observe, one must be solidly rooted in the present moment. There are entire forms of meditation that involve focusing one’s attention on visual arts pieces such as mandalas. 

The entire act of mindfulness meditation consists of observing one’s breath. 

Many, many scientific studies have attested to the mental and physical health benefits of mindfulness and other forms of meditation. Therefore, increasing my students’ observational skills should support their well-being as humans and their artistic capabilities. Right? 

I kept puzzling. How was I to target this skill most effectively? Over the next couple of days, as I went about teaching and life in general, I came up with at least the beginnings of a plan. 

The next lesson, I showed my students one of the short videos again. This time, I had them gather in front of the SmartBoard without anything in their hands to distract them. After watching, I challenged them to return to their seats and record as many observations as they could. “What did you see?” I asked. I offered a very small prize for the student who could list the most observations.

Then we repeated the process.

Not surprisingly, they found this challenging. But I noticed that when distractions were minimized and students knew that their main goal was to continually observe, they appeared to be far more settled and focused on the video. More importantly, they reported unanimously that they noticed many things they had missed during their first viewing. 

Experiment complete, I resumed our lesson for the day.

The following class, students were completing a guided watercolor tutorial in preparation for their free choice work in that medium. Usually, I prepare supplies and get them started as quickly as possible. This time, I directed them to observe first.

We repeated the exercise. I put an image of the piece they were about to create on the SmartBoard, and set a timer for 2 minutes. They stared. I encouraged them occasionally. “Don’t give up!” I whispered when I saw a student’s eyes begin to wander. “Only 30 seconds!” I added as they approached the 2-minute mark. 

My students told me that observing a single piece of art was “WAY harder” than focusing on a video. I validated their responses and commended their efforts. But guess what: the watercolor paintings they created that day were easily the best work they had done all semester.

Is it possible that their sudden success was a coincidence? Of course. But I don’t think so. The quality of my students’ work suddenly increased, in June, with no other identifiable cause. It felt like a little miracle, and I find myself excited to repeat this activity in future lessons and with future groups of students, to see whether the results can be repeated. 

Interested? Here are 5 Observational Activities for Every Subject.

These can be done with any piece of art or object of students’ attention. Graphs, data sets, film clips, pieces of music, photographs, natural environments and even hallway bulletin boards all present opportunities to build students’ observational skills.

Observe and List

1. Set a timer for 2-3 minutes and instruct your students to just notice. It is helpful if they don’t have anything in their hands, and if they are close to whatever they need to look at. If they are listening, it will be helpful for students to close their eyes.

2. When the timer goes off, allow another 2-3 minutes for students to list as many observations as they can. Their responses can be single words or phrases. 

3. I set another timer and encourage students to keep going by telling them when they’re at the half-way mark. If you like, encourage students to engage by offering a very tiny reward to the person who is able to list the most items. It’s important that the goal is quantity over quality. Otherwise, you risk discouraging students and shutting down their efforts.

4. If you do this often with small prizes, you can level the playing field by awarding the prize to the student with the most improvement instead of the most overall items on their list.
   

Observe. Sketch. Observe. Adjust.

1. Set a timer for 2-3 minutes and instruct your students to just notice. It is still helpful if they don’t have anything in their hands - not even their pencils - and if they are close to whatever they need to look at. 

2. Hide the art piece or object of students’ observation, if possible.

3. Set a timer for another 2-3 minutes and encourage them to sketch.

4. When the timer goes off, allow one more minute of observation. No pencils or drawing allowed! Hide the piece again when viewing time is over.

5. Allow students one minute to adjust their sketches. Discuss or share as you see fit.
   

Observe and Discuss

1. Decide on partners ahead of time. Ideally, partners should not sit/stand side by side, as they will be tempted to share too early.

2. Set a timer for 2-3 minutes and instruct your students to just notice. It is still helpful if they don’t have anything in their hands and if they are close to whatever they need to look at. 

3. Hide the art piece or object of students’ observations, if possible.

4. Have students find their partner and share what they saw. If discrepancies exist, this is a great opportunity to talk about our brains’ abilities to fill in predictable details and make assumptions, and to emphasize the importance of observation. After discussing, feel free to put the piece back up so students can check it - or not! Sometimes, living with a bit of unsettling ambiguity is good practice.
   

Observe & Instruct an Artist

1. Decide on partners ahead of time. Choose one partner to be the observer and another to be the artist. The artist should not be able to see the piece of art or object of students’ observations.

2. Set a timer for 2-3 minutes and instruct your students to observe. It is helpful if they don’t have anything in their hands - not even their pencils - and if they are in close proximity to whatever they need to look at. 

3. Hide the art piece or object of students’ observation, if possible.

4. Set a timer for 3-4 minutes. Instruct the observers to describe what they saw, and the artists to do their best to sketch it. Observers may not help artists draw! Be prepared for laughter and a little bit of sheepish embarrassment here, and help students keep the mood light.

5. When the timer goes off, allow one more minute of observation. No pencils or drawing allowed! Hide the piece again when viewing time is over.

6. Allow observers one minute to add to their instructions while artists add to their sketches. 

7. Discuss or share as you see fit. You may repeat this activity with a second art piece to give partners the opportunity to swap roles.
   
   

Observe the Art Piece & Observe Your Emotions

1. This activity is best for students who are already fairly comfortable observing in an objective way. If students are new to this activity, it is helpful to choose an art piece or other object of focus that is intentionally amusing, intense or even off-putting (though still age appropriate and sensitive to students’ histories, both known and unknown). This will make it easier for students to identify the emotions the piece evokes in them.

2. Set a timer for 2-3 minutes and instruct your students to notice what they see. All of the usual conditions should apply here: nothing in their hands, eyes closed for listening, etc.

3. Instruct students to observe both the art piece or object of observation AND their own emotional reactions to it. 

4. When the timer goes off, ask students to record their emotions. You may need to normalize students’ discomfort here: remind them that it’s okay if they aren’t absolutely sure of their answers, or don’t have words that seem exactly right. A favorite phrase of mine is, “The only wrong answer is a blank page.”

5. I wouldn’t recommend requiring anyone to share with the group during an activity like this one, but if students are open to sharing then a brief discussion of how they felt, and theories as to what it was that made them respond that way, may be helpful.

6. Tip: if students are new to emotional vocabulary (and most probably will be), provide a list of emotions, like this one from The Hoffman Institute for their reference.

Like what you see here? I post every other week, so stay tuned for more! In the meantime, please check out the free guides to teaching Art and integrating the Arts & SEL into core subjects! You can find them here.