Fun in the GT Classroom

1. Fun in the GT Classroom Meredith Austin austinm@pearlandisd.org www.austinGTfun.weebly.com

2. Today’s Goals • Creativity and relationship building exercise • Teaching kids to think! • Six Thinking Hats Method for Problem Solving • Game

3. Your life + a dot You have been given a sheet of paper with a dot. Find a way to incorporate the dot and represent something about you and your life on the rest of paper. Try to use the dot in a way that no one else will think of. Fill up the paper… no white space!

4. Why Life+Dot Works? • Do this at the beginning of the year • You get to see early on where the students creativity lies • When the students present their life+dot, you get to know more about them • Relationship building

5. Multiple Perspectives • develops students’ critical thinking skills • "If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking." —George Patton • “Those who know how to think need no teachers.” —Mahatma Gandhi

6. How Can We Teach Thinking? • Six Thinking Hats Method • Developed by Edward DeBono for use in the business world. Can be used in many situations. • Six colors of hats for six types of thinking • Each hat identifies a type of thinking • Hats are directions of thinking • Hats help a group use parallel thinking • You can “put on” and “take off” a hat

7. Hints • Direction, not description • Set out to think in a certain direction • “Let’s have some black hat thinking…” • Not categories of people • Not: “He’s a black hat thinker.” • Everyone can and should use all the hats • A constructive form of showing off • Show off by being a better thinker • Not destructive right vs. wrong argument • Use in whole or in part

8. Six Colors for Thinking • White: objective facts & figures • Red: emotions & feelings • Black: cautious & careful • Yellow: hope, positive & speculative • Green: creativity, ideas & lateral thinking • Blue: control & organization of thinking

9. Six Colors for Thinking

10. The blue hat • Thinking about thinking • Instructions for thinking • The organization of thinking • Control of the other hats • Discipline and focus

11. The blue hat role • Control of thinking & the process • Begin & end session with blue hat • Facilitator, session leader’s role • Choreography • open, sequence, close • Focus: what should we be thinking about • Asking the right questions • Defining & clarifying the problem • Setting the thinking tasks

12. Open with the blue hat… • Why we are here • what we are thinking about • definition of the situation or problem • alternative definitions • what we want to achieve • where we want to end up • the background to the thinking • a plan for the sequence of hats

13. …and close with the blue hat • What we have achieved • Outcome • Conclusion • Design • Solution • Next steps

14. White Hat Thinking • Neutral, objective information • Facts & figures • Questions: what do we know, what don’t we know, what do we need to know • Excludes opinions, hunches, judgements • Removes feelings & impressions • Two tiers of facts • Believed Facts • Checked Facts

15. Red Hat Thinking • Emotions & feelings • Hunches, intuitions, impressions • Doesn’t have to be logical or consistent • No justifications, reasons or basis • All decisions are emotional in the end

16. Yellow Hat Thinking • Positive & speculative • Positive thinking, optimism, opportunity • Benefits • Best-case scenarios • Exploration

17. Green Hat Thinking • New ideas, concepts, perceptions • Deliberate creation of new ideas • Alternatives and more alternatives • New approaches to problems • Creative & lateral thinking

18. Black Hat Thinking • Cautious and careful • Logical negative – why it won’t work • Critical judgement, pessimistic view • Separates logical negative from emotional • Focus on errors, evidence, conclusions • Logical & truthful, but not necessarily fair

19. Six hats summary Blue: control & organization of thinking White: objective facts & figures Red: emotions & feelings Yellow: hope, positive & speculative Green: creativity, ideas & lateral thinking Black: cautious & careful

20. How can you use it? • Groups of six • Each student “wearing” a different hat solving the same problem • Small Groups • “Draw” a hat and ask questions from that perspective • Individually • Everyone thinks about a problem using just a single hat

21. Example • Students Talking While Others Are Talking Or Teaching

22. Let’s Play a Game

23. Want to learn more? • Paul Reali • www.cyberskills.com or www.omniskills.com • preali@cyberskills.com • Lateral Thinking, deBono’s Thinking Course, and other books by Edward deBono