De Bono's 6 Thinking Hats

Hi again, I wasn’t thinking positively about this course to start with and constantly questioning myself with why am I doing this? Why would I want to hamper my student’s development of skills by locking them inside and making them sit through endless hours of ‘computer’ time when we could be outside investigating and exploring our environment, designing and creating new experiences and letting them be the leaders of their learning. Plus we have limited computer access and very limited internet access anyway. But maybe I was wearing the wrong hat. I needed a new perspective.

I think we all know about Edward De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats but in case you have forgotten I will remind you of their purpose. The hats are used as a tool to guide the thinking process and can be put on a student’s head either metaphorically or physically. The changing of hats allows the students to switch their way of thinking so they can see the situation from a variety of viewpoints. The outcomes that are hoped to be achieved by doing this are to think about situations more objectively and to develop a greater understanding. Guess which hat I had been wearing? If you guessed black and thinking continual negative thoughts- you would be right.

So I decided after my negativities were being pointed out to me yet again that I needed to switch hats and look at this course from a new perspective and WOW what a way to look at things!
Red hat on and I started to think about my feelings and emotions related to this course. Am I being negative because this is a new learning environment to me? Am I scared and unsure of my capabilities?
Yellow hat on and I start to think about the good points. Could doing this course open my mind up to new learning tools and the possibility of a new learning environment? Will it assist my students and in particular a certain group of students learning styles?
Green hat on and I start thinking about the creative elements this course could bring to a classroom. How? What can it do? What will it allow us to try?
White hat on and I have to start considering information and facts. What information do I need? How do I get that information?
And finally blue hat on and I need to start organising all these thoughts. What have I done so far? What do I have to do next? What conclusions have I reached and what have I learnt? I have a lot to learn to inform my learners and from now on in I am going to do my best to wear a variety of hats and not just one certain colour.

Reference:

Brady, L. (2006). Collabrative Learning In Action. Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education Australia