The six thinking hats

What can students learn from this?

Six Thinking Hats is a tool for group discussion and individual thinking involving six colored hats. The 6 thinking hats – where each one of them has a different color – is a good technique when we want to determine the implications of a decision, addressing the issue from different perspectives and angles. We also use it when we want to encourage further thought and reflection on a subject, or when we want to look at how an idea can be applied. With this technique, we can still see the reactions of others when we try to apply something.

How can I do this in class?

The Six Thinking Hats Method is a powerful business analysis tool for problem solving and idea generation. It is a workshop-oriented method that requires individual participants to think and perform in a certain way (based on the hat they are “wearing”) to help explore issues creatively, objectively and from many pre-defined perspectives. To use the method, colored “thinking” hats are allocated to individuals who are then asked to think about the issue with that specific hat on. The hats are:

• White: Information and data focused;
• Red: Based on feelings, intuition, hunches and emotions;
• Black: Cautious, judgmental, critical;
• Yellow: Optimistic, positive, glass half-full;
• Green: Generator of creative energy, ideas, stimulation;
• Blue: Process-oriented, keeping the creativity moving.

Use Six Thinking Hats with parallel thinking or as a means to divide up roles. Do whatever works best for your group of students and for the topic you are discussing.

1. Ask for specific thinking hat responses or ideas from the entire class. Redirect as necessary to keep the ideas focused by hat. This is a great way to introduce the concept of the six thinking hats.
2. Split your class into groups with the same focus. Each group will work together to brainstorm different ideas and responses based on the thinking hat. As the teacher, you will be the blue hat for the whole-class discussion after the student groups have had a chance to confer with one another.
3. Split up your class into groups of six as best as you can. Assign a hat to each person in the group, either randomly or based on specific factors, and allow students to have mini-discussions. After giving students a chance to try out their thinking hat in a small group, bring all groups together.
4. After students start to get more familiar with the six thinking hats, they can start identifying the hat they are using when providing ideas. This will allow you to tweak responses to match the purpose of a hat, or correct any misconceptions and misunderstandings.

Reflection tips

In regards to ‘socratic methods’, ‘analysis’, ‘judgement’, ‘critical thinking’ etc  … the Six Thinking Hats have not been designed to test students with any of this – the Six Thinking Hats should be taught to students for the reasons they were designed by de Bono this includes:

• to unravel our thinking so it is not all mixed up
• to be able to switch our  thinking between different modes of thinking on-demand when we need to (to solve, create, generate, design, consider, evaluate, analyse, decide, plan, develop etc … all of which are different thinking ‘verbs’ that can be used with Blue Hat focus to do everyday thinking about any issue, task or problem)
• to stop adversarial thinking … this means to stop argument, judgement of other people’s ideas and critical thinking to prove ‘I and right and you are wrong’ and debating … so we can be highly productive thinkers and move forward together with our thinking, creating new solutions together, instead of wasting time
• to stop critical judgement and blocking ideas, and paralysis by analysis and a make a space for creative thinking at anytime, to come up with new solutions, solve problems, be entrepreneurial.

There is much more to thinking than analysis and judgement, if judgement is needed however to decide if an idea is going to work or to make a decision between one option or another – this is just one of many many focuses that can be set up with Blue Hat thinking.

Then an appropriate Hat sequence can be decided … for evaluating (i.e. judging), this will always include Yellow Hat (always first) then Black Hat. When using both of these Hats logic has to be used to justify one’s ideas, if students learn how to use these two Hats properly they will know how to make sound,  justifiable judgements with logic.  …

The students learn that judging an idea with Yellow Hat – even if the idea seems stupid, is good thinking and judging an idea with Black Hat – even if it seems like the best idea in the world, is good thinking. Most of all they learn critical thinking to break down someone else’s argument is not good thinking, it just wastes time when they and the other person could be moving forward with new ideas together.

Relevant useful material

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Six Thinking Hats in the Classroom

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deBono Six Thinking Hats in the Classroom