Reflection on the 'Six Thinking Hats' activity

We spent some time in class this week on an activity involving mass-editing a single wiki page. The results were ... not optimal. Basically, with several people editing at once, the page would be updated by one person, but somebody else would be editing an earlier version of the page simultaneously - and when they published their version it overrode other changes. The page could be seen flashing through different ideas, never keeping the same content for 5 minutes in a row. I successfully contributed a paragraph, only to find it erased entirely when I refreshed the page! This was frustrating because I hadn’t saved it into a separate document. I don’t think a Wiki was the most useful tool for this activity. A shared Google document may have been more effective when it came to multiple people editing at the same time.

Aside from this problem, the design of the activity was pedagogically sound. It provided a strong example of social constructivism in action, as an entire classroom of learners brought their thoughts to the table and bounced their ideas off one-another in an effort to collaboratively seek an answer to a question. This can be clearly observed in the wiki, with many people actually referring to others’ comments and offering support or contrasting viewpoints.

The use of Edward de Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’ was highly appropriate. The Hats acted as a scaffold, encouraging higher order thinking by emphasising creative and critical exploration (Jarrard, 2011). An answer to the set question was never determined, and yet I believe the activity was a success. Learning occurred as people exercised their minds, and this is evident in the contributions. The activity could be followed up on, though, by setting the task of analysing the multiple perspectives in order to arrive at a solution.

The ‘Six Thinking Hats’ are pictured below for reference:

 Image source: http://www.mindwerx.com

I also think that, in participating in this activity, we were learning in ways that went beyond just thinking about the topic. A table, and minimal instruction, were provided to help us organise our contributions – but how would we know who had written what? We needed to problem-solve collaboratively to keep ourselves organised. We quickly decided it would be wise to add our names after we wrote something, and that the use of colour would help distinguish between entries. We also had to consider how we could respect other people’s contributions, doing our best not to accidentally change or remove their words, and phrasing our opinions in considerate, tactful ways. All of this made the activity an exercise in cooperation - it was not just about 'what' we were doing, but 'how' we were doing it.

References

Jarrard, B. (2011). Six thinking hats: Parallel thinking for teamwork. Retrieved from http://www.mindwerx.com/mind-tools/5970/six-thinking-hats