The Big Picture, Six Thinking Hats

The following text is from wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats The de Bono Hats system (also known as "Six Hats" or "Six Thinking Hats") is a thinking tool for group discussion and individual thinking. Combined with the idea of parallel thinking which is associated with it, it provides a means for groups to think together more effectively, and a means to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way. The method is attributed to Dr. Edward de Bono and is the subject of his book, Six Thinking Hats[1]. The method is finding widespread use in the UK innovation sector, is offered by numerous facilitation companies and has been trialled within the UK civil service.[2] Blue hat – The Big Picture This is the hat under which all participants discuss the thinking process. The facilitator will generally wear it throughout and each member of the team will put it on from time to time to think about directing their work together. This hat should be used at the start and end of each thinking session, to set objectives, to define the route to take to get to them, to evaluate where the group has got to, and where the thinking process is going. Having a facilitator maintain this role throughout helps ensure that the group remains focused on task and improves their chances of achieving their objectives. The blue hat is also an organization of thinking. What have we done so far? What can we do next? Commercial examples are: * We'll follow this program of thinking to start the day - does everyone agree? * OK time to move on to some yellow hat thinking * Stop there - you are getting into debate. Lets do some black hat and surface all the issues together first * I think we need to revisit our objectives, I'm not sure that they are right in light of our work so far Examples from the referenced article are: * Teacher learns that they need to monitor the amount of time that they spend talking within the classroom * Teacher needs to involve all students within discussions * Teacher needs to recognize that some students need thinking time before responding. Allowing these students time to compute solutions promotes wider participation and increased learning * Students realize that their talking makes the speaker feel unappreciated and disrespected * Students realize that their comments are jeopardizing the learning of other individuals * Students realize that talking out of time demonstrates a lack of self-discipline and that not all comments require sharing