Using the six hats of thinking? Interesting.

[ChrissySC]

Using the Six Hats to Respond to Current Events (from this thread)

 

Blue Hat controls which hat goes on and off. Blue Hat tells us when to switch hats and indicates what type of thinking is needed

 

White Hat: Information and facts about the article

• Title

• Author and photographer

• What happened?

• Who was involved and what do they look like?

• Where and when did it happen?

 

Red Hat: Discussing feelings, likes and dislikes

• How did the article make you feel?

• How did you feel when the event happened or the person said…?

• If a picture was included, do you think the picture fits the article?

Yellow Hat: Benefits, good points and advantages

• What was the advantage of the event?

• What are all the good points about...the people involved or the event that took place?

 

Black Hat: Disadvantages, dangers and problems

• What are the dangers involved in visiting … (the setting of the article)?

• What are the disadvantages in trying to solve problems that way?

• When ____ did _______, what problems did they encounter?

 

Green Hat: New ideas, creating, adapting, innovating

• What picture would you have taken to showcase this article?

• Think of a different way to solve the problem in the article or to report on the event.

• Rewrite the article using one of the hats to guide the tone.

 

 

More on this with other things and further explained.

 

Thinking hats seem to be quite popular. I can see where the colors would be cues for certain thoughts and responses. What do you think?

 

I like it with current events. I may get colored stickers, instead of hats, to use in our current events notebook study.

[Lori D.]

:biggrinjester: [putting on multi-colored jester hat in order to cover all the basees -- LOL!]

 

Sounds very confusing! And like too much potential for teacher and students to get hung up on "what color category" does a question or answer fall under, rather than using the questions as discussion starters...

 

Honestly? [...prepare for me and my crazy hat to rain on the parade now (LOL!)...] It sounds like a sequential/logical person's attempt to organize and categorize types of thinking and discussion starters into "boxes" because that is a very neat and orderly way to think and really connects for the sequential thinker/learner. BUT -- the person who came up with the idea also (very kindly and generously) wanted to include other types of thinkers/learners -- and thinks that by associating colored (visual) hats (tangible) with different categories of thinking, it will connect for other types of thinkers/learners.

 

Just from our experience: those other type of learners/thinkers are random -- intuitive -- out of the box -- non-linear. Conversations with a visual-spatial learner or non-sequential thinker don't fall into these neat little color-coded boxes. And: that's a very GOOD thing indeed! :) The most interesting, detailed and meaningful conversations we have here are usually the result of willingness to follow an unexpected bunny trail that cropped up -- and follow where it leads, which is usually far afield and off the scripted teacher materials...

 

I can just picture the following conversation in attempting to use this:

 

 

Me (for once attempting to use a curriculum as written) : "Okay, each colored hat represents a different type of thinking/questioning.."

 

Strong-willed child: "Why those colors? Can't I pick my own colors?"

 

Follow-the-rules child: "I have a question, but it seems to fit two categories; I am getting very anxious because I don't know which hat to put on!"

 

Out-of-the-box thinker child: "Look! I can put a hat on each hand and each foot!"

 

Emotional child (lip quivering): "I don't want to wear a black hat! My favorite color is green!"

 

Me: "Hmm, maybe we could pick a question out of a box instead of worrying about colors..."

 

First-born child: "I am wearing the white hat. I have already read ahead and according to the list this hat is all about facts."

 

Last-born child: "Fact: this is boring."

 

Me (shelving the project): "You know, I'm just remembering why I hate hats: they always give me "hat hair"..."

 

 

I guess if, as a teacher, I had to use this concept, I'd just copy/paste the list of bullet points (sans "colored hats"), and just pick different questions at different times -- and not in any particular order -- to throw at my students to spark conversation. [Guess that says more about my teaching style than a student's learning style! -- lol]

 

Sometimes, I think we try to "formalize" teaching/learning TOO much -- esp. all those poor public school teachers who have to check off all those boxes for every single thing they do to show all the "standards" that were touched on by the material. This activity seems to fall perilously close to that type of requirement -- which ultimately seems to shut down learning and thinking, rather than opening up conversation, sparking ideas, making connections, learning how to formulate a persuasive argument supported by facts/examples...

 

Chrissy, in NO way meaning this post as an attack on you or this idea -- this may be a GREAT way to expand conversations and learning at your house! I do hope so! This post was just my opinion. Warmest regards, Lori D. [the multi-colored Mad Hatter :tongue_smilie:]

Edited August 24, 2011 by Lori D.

[ChrissySC]

In the way that it was presented for current events, I thought of it as a way to file the information originally. However, across the subject content, I got lost. I finally finished the original "hats" page. Holy cows!

 

And, I thought of a more adaptive approach for what I was looking for - current events notebook design. LOL I wanted a visual indication of the type of event or information. I am thinking colored dots - but I'll blog about it later - lots of stickers for the CE study. However, beyond something that is so obvious, I cannot see hats working in other content areas .... Am I dense?

 

I think this stuck with me the most ....

 

Sometimes, I think we try to "formalize" teaching/learning TOO much

 

Thanks for noting that. I think we all need to remember - we don't have to formalize our education!

 

Edit: Did you read about the 7th graders not being able to do a CE? How much modeling does a 7th grader really need?