Six Thinking Hats

THE SIX THINKING HATS

Has this ever happened to you? Your students are eager to participate on a debate, but rather than providing different and innovative ideas, they are running in circles on the same things. Don’t despair; you can use this useful technique: THE SIX THINKING HATS.

The method is simple. There are six imaginary hats, each of a different color. At any time a thinker can choose to get one of the hats or may be asked to remove it. All the people in a discussion can wear a hat with a specific color for a while at any given time. Hats engage participants in a kind of mental role-playing game.

Six distinct states are identified and assigned a color:

White Hat: Facts, information, data and research.

Examples: What information is available?

What are the facts?

Red Hat: Emotions, feelings, hunches, intuition, instinctive gut reaction (not any justification).

Examples: What are your feelings now?

What are your gut feelings about..?

Black Hat: Logic, caution, risks, flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch.

Examples: What are the consequences of…?

What should you be cautious…?

Yellow Hat: benefits, seeking harmony, strengths.

Examples: What are the benefits of…?

What did you like about…?

Green Hat: Creativity, imagination, possibilities, statements of provocation and investigation.

Examples: How would you solve the problem?

Can you think of other ways to do this?

Blue Hat: Concluding, organizing, summarizing, thinking about thinking.

Examples: Summarize the story

What is your action plan?

Benefits of the method:

It is easy to learn and use and has immediate appeal. The display of hats (colors) helps it.
It gives time available for deliberate creative effort.
It allows the legitimate expression of feelings and intuitions in a discussion – without a justification or apology. «This is what I feel.»
It provides a simple and direct way thought without offending switch.
It requires that all thinkers be able to use each of the hats instead of staying closed on just one type of thinking.
It provides a practical method of thinking in order to use different aspects of thinking in the best possible sequence.
It escapes the arguments for and against and allows participants to collaborate in a constructive exploration.
It makes discussions more productive.
It avoids usual repetition on the part of the students.

10. It encourages parallel thinking.

11. It separates ego from performance.

Personal Review

We tried this technique and it proved to be very successful in getting students engaged in a discussion. Also there was a great amount of STT. The way we presented was the following:

First, instructions are given. This means students learn about the hats and colors and what they represent.

Then, groups are organized. Six is the ideal number, but if the situation does not allow it, we could have 5 and even 4 in each group. That means we will have to discard one or two hats.

Next, students are given a topic of discussion. In our activity, we chose drunk driving. In order to get students familiar with the topic, we showed them a video.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=simple+plan+untitled&aq=o

After that, the discussion starts, and each student gets a role. The discussion goes on until everyone has had the chance to express his or her point of view according to the color or hat they have.

At the end, the blue hat is in charge of summarizing and reporting to the whole class.

This activity is really successful. Plus students really enjoyed it. Give it a try.

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