Tip of the Week – Six Hat Thinking

Essentially, Six Hat Thinking is about improving communication and decision-making in groups. It’s a strategy devised by Edward de Bono that asks students to change the way they think about a topic by looking at the problem through a range of different “thinking hats.”

• White hat thinking focuses on the information available and needed.
• Black hat thinking examines the difficulties and problems associated with a topic.
• Yellow hat thinking focuses on benefits and values.
• Red hat thinking looks at a topic from the point of view of emotions, feelings and hunches.
• Green hat thinking requires imaginative, creative and lateral thinking about a topic.
• Blue hat thinking focuses on reflection, metacognition and the need to manage the thinking process.

The colors help students to see six different perspectives and to convey something of the meaning of that perspective.

What is its purpose?

Students learn to recognize that different thinking is required in different situations. The strategy also encourages listening skills, group dynamics and improves decision making.

How can you use it?

Consider an issue or topic which you would like your students to explore. For example, you may want your kids to discuss the financial compensation of Japanese-Americans interned by the US government during World War II.

Explain what thinking is required for each of the hats. Arrange your kids into small groups of six and assign each student a “hat.” Younger kids (and even high school students) enjoy actually wearing the hat so come prepared with a variety of hats in appropriate colors. Encourage the students to ask themselves a variety of questions:

White hat – what are the facts about the internment and possible compensation?
Black hat – what are the negatives about possible compensation? What might happen without compensation?
Yellow hat – what would be gained from compensating Japanese-Americans?
Red hat – how might the possible compensation make us feel?
Green hat – are there other solutions besides compensation?
Blue hat – what might improve the process of compensation?

After sharing their findings within their own groups, have the groups report back to the whole class about the types of ideas generated.

How can I adapt it?

Six Hat Thinking can be applied to many situations in which brainstorming, problem solving, creative and lateral thinking are required. This strategy can be a very useful tool in reviewing a range of texts or even creating a character profile.

Have fun!

Teachers can save the economy

I love Indexed. It’s both simple and complex all at the same time.

Plus . . . it’s fun.

A recent entry:

Are your kids hedgehogs or foxes?

Several months ago, Sharon Begley of Newsweek magazine wrote a quick article describing the inaccurate predictions and comments of online and cable political pundits. Begley discusses the reason why so many “experts” are wrong so often and cites research by Phillip Tetlock of Standford University:

At first, Tetlock’s ongoing study of 82,361 predictions by 284 pundits (most but not all of them American) came up empty. He initially looked at whether accuracy was related to having a Ph.D., being an economist or political scientist rather than a blowhard journalist, having policy experience or access to classified information, or being a realist or neocon, liberal or conservative.

But it turns out that prediction accuracy, the ability to be “right,” has nothing to do with any of Tetlock’s first ideas. Being “right” has everything to do with whether the expert is a hedgehog or a fox.

That bestiary comes from the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who in 1953 argued that hedgehogs “know one big thing.” They apply that one thing (for instance, that ethnicity and language are primal; ergo, any country that contains many ethnic groups will break up) everywhere, express supreme confidence in their forecasts, dismiss opposing views and are drawn to top-down arguments deduced from that Big Idea. Foxes, in contrast, “know many things,” as Berlin put it. They consider competing views, make bottom-up inductive arguments from an array of facts and doubt the power of Big Ideas. “The hedgehog-fox dimension did what none of the other traits did,” says Tetlock.

Basically, what matters most is not what the pundits think but how they think. Begley goes on to describe this process in more descriptive language:

At one extreme, hedgehogs seek certainty and closure, dismiss information that undercuts their preconceptions and embrace evidence that reinforces them, in what is called “belief defense and bolstering.” At the other extreme, foxes are cognitively flexible, modest and open to self-criticism.

Yeah . . . so?

I guess what I see is that we as educators do a great job of preparing our kids to be hedgehogs – prepping for tests, memorizing textbooks and limiting choices. And I understand this is a gross simplification but one thing leads to another. If we are training kids to be great hedgehogs, then perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised when “experts” can’t get things right.

So more problem-based learning, more performance tasks, more appropriate video games and simulations, basically more “academic discomfort” for our kids is needed.

Our job as teachers becomes a bit clearer perhaps when we know our job is to develop foxes, not just hedgehogs.

HowStuffWorks history videos

I was searching for useful geography web sites this morning and, is often the case while surfing the web, ran across something completely random and wonderful!

HowStuffWorks.

Yes, I’ve been there before. It’s an incredibly useful tool but today I found a treasure I hadn’t previously run across.

History videos.

HowStuffWorks has posted over 1200 history videos that cover all time periods and all geographic areas. I just finished watching an interesting video on Pickett’s Charge and another video on the June 6th, 1944 D-Day invasion featuring oral histories of veterans. Pretty sweet!

Not only are there great video clips (most are in the 2-7 minte range) but there is a related clip section and links to related articles. The browse and search features are easy to use and the results are accurate. This is a wonderful place to find primary sources and period images. Plan on staying awhile!

Rising above IQ

I need to get this book.

Richard Nisbett has written what seems like a must-read for educators and, more specifically, education leaders titled Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count.

In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, columnist Nicholas D. Kristof talks about Nisbett’s book and what it might mean for our education system.

These three groups (Asian-Americans, Jews and West Indian blacks) may help debunk the myth of success as a simple product of intrinsic intellect, for they represent three different races and histories. In the debate over nature and nurture, they suggest the importance of improved nurture — which, from a public policy perspective, means a focus on education. Their success may also offer some lessons for you, me, our children — and for the broader effort to chip away at poverty in this country.

Richard Nisbett cites each of these groups in his superb recent book, “Intelligence and How to Get It.” Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, argues that what we think of as intelligence is quite malleable and owes little or nothing to genetics.

Kristof talks about Nisbett’s research and agrees with Nisbett’s argument that perhaps intelligence is less dependent on genetics and more dependent on culture and hard work.

. . . the evidence is overwhelming that what is distinctive about these three groups is not innate advantage but rather a tendency to get the most out of the firepower they have.

This seems to support some of what Malcolm Gladwell talks about in Outliers. It’s an interesting concept and one that we as educators need to pay more attention to. If it’s not so much about genetics and more about environment / culture, then we as educators (and society) have a responsibility that goes beyond just filling our students heads with content.

What else?

It’s that the most decisive weapons in the war on poverty aren’t transfer payments but education, education, education. For at-risk households, that starts with social workers making visits to encourage such basic practices as talking to children.

The next step is intensive early childhood programs, followed by improved elementary and high schools and programs to defray college costs.

Perhaps the larger lesson is a very empowering one: success depends less on intellectual endowment than on perseverance and drive. As Professor Nisbett puts it, “Intelligence and academic achievement are very much under people’s control.”

One more book added to the summer reading list!