Dr. Edward de Bono came up with the six thinking hats. In 1985, he authored Six Thinking Hats about thinking about things. The idea has become popular in educational and business circles, where groups work together and make decisions. In problem-solving sessions, people must look at things from different angles to process information and develop the best ideas.
This is the basic idea of the six thinking hats. Companies often have a facilitator lead them through each hat and their roles to get a complete picture of a problem. This way, they can see the issue from all sides. It could be used in many different ways, from product design to motivating and engaging people to avoid risks.
Teachers use the six thinking hats exert to train critical thinking in schools. This is how it works: Exercises called “Six Hats” are also great because they help teachers shake off the typical “teacher in front of the class” role. This is especially good for students who aren’t used to talking. It helps them participate in the decision-making process and share their ideas.
If you want to make sure that everyone is heard in a classroom discussion, you can make it so that the focus is on everyone’s point of view rather than just one correct answer. This powerful method can improve critical thinking skills and productivity and spark new ideas and creative problem-solving.
What are the ‘Six Thinking Hats’?
The hats represent different parts of the human brain that will be intentionally turned on during sessions or exercises by the instructor or facilitator. This is how it works:
De Bono talked about the following six thinking hats in this way:
- Blue – management and control
- white – objectivity, facts, and logic.
- Red – intuition, gut feelings, emotions
- Black – caution, foreboding
- Yellow – hopeful, optimistic predictions
- Green – ingenuity, unrestricted flow of ideas
How Do You Utilize The Six Thinking Hats?
There’s no need to follow a set order when running a classroom exercise, group activity, or brainstorming meeting. You can change the order to get the effect you want. If you’re going to teach something and be more informative, you’ll spend more time with the white hat than with other people.
To ensure you don’t forget anything when deciding, you’ll spend more time with the black hat. If you want to know what people think, the red hat will be more prominent. Green is the color in charge of the meeting if you come up with new ideas.
Because the human brain is so complicated, people often have more exciting and in-depth reactions when they use the hats together, whether they’re imagining positive or negative outcomes or coming up with new ideas, like when they use them together.
Which Benefits Come With Using The Six Thinking Hats?
If you’re teaching a group of students how to be more productive when they work together or if you’re trying to solve a problem in your business, the six thinking hats method can help.
- Encourage thinking outside the box.
- Create a good group dynamic
- People should learn to think more holistically to see things in a bigger picture.
- Make sure that everyone in the classroom or team is involved in discussions.
- Improve group decision-making skills
- Support a respectful way to make decisions.
- Think of new ideas and practices to solve problems.
- Develop your leadership skills.
- Take the time to teach critical thinking skills
- Enhance your performance
Sample Exercise in a classroom
Afterward, ask them to read an argumentative article about a particular subject. It’s then time to break up the class into six students. During the discussion, students will pick colored cards out of a box and, based on the color they choose, that will be what hat they wear.
To keep things in order, it’s best if all discussions follow the same color flow, which you as the teacher can decide. Ten minutes for groups to talk about the issue. Each student can show off the cognitive function of the hat color that they chose. As a group, have students move around and pick different colors to look at an issue in another way.
Before writing an argumentative essay, people who do this exercise can learn to think critically about a hot-button issue and write better articles. In the next step, they can use those skills to write an argumentative essay on a topic of their own choice
Conclusions
The six thinking hats technique has been utilized by businesses and schools to help people look at all sides of a problem. Using it in class discussions or meetings can have many positive effects, like making sure everyone can understand a problem or subject better, encouraging critical thinking and innovation, and allowing everyone to be a part of a team or class.
