In 1985, Dr. Edward De Bono published his book ‘Six Thinking
Hats’ which he had created to approach a question, problem, situation or idea
from six different trains of thought, resulting in effective parallel thinking.
His six thinking hats included the negative black hat, the
process blue hat, the creative green hat, the intuitive red hat, the
positive yellow hat and the objective white hat. Follow this link for more
info on De Bono’s six thinking hats (which contains a link to a presentation on
the six thinking hats) http://www.debonogroup.com/six_thinking_hats.php or see the image below.
The purpose of using the scaffolding of De Bono’s six
thinking hats was to get us thinking about the question ‘should mobile phones
be allowed in the classroom?’ from all angles. This was an effective higher
order thinking method as it made me really consider all the areas affected by
introducing mobile phones into the classroom before deciding whether I was
opposed to, or in support of the notion. I believe De Bono’s thinking hats
could be used in my pedagogy practice to adjust my thought process when being
too negative or alternatively, looking too often through rose coloured glasses.
The six thinking hats scaffolding could also be used as a pedagogy strategy to
encourage students to attack problems from different perspectives and encourage
effective thinking.
By engaging in this thought process on a Wikispace the
learning theories of Constructivism, Cognitivism and Connectivism were
introduced to enhance the learning experience. The most interesting aspect of
this activity was not what I felt about the use of mobile phones in the
classroom but how my peers felt about it. Being able to see what my fellow
students thought about the idea and why, made me rethink what I originally
thought as they all had great opposing views; and by doing this we were all
learning together socially, which is exactly what Piaget and Vygotsky encourage
in Constructivism learning theory.
Using the Wiki also engaged the short term memory section of
Cognitivism. To put it more simply, reading about De Bono’s six thinking hats
put the information in our ‘sensory register’, participating in the Wiki moved
the information into our ‘short term memory’ ready to be moved into our ‘long
term memory’ hopefully after we blog about it.
Since this activity involved the use of the ICT Wiki it
caters for the digital age and provides a space to refer to the information and
discussion of others whenever we choose, which links with the learning theory
of Connectivism created by George Siemens.
So to really get into the nitty gritty of Wikispaces, I
thought it is only fitting to reflect on it using De Bono’s six thinking hats;
Black hat/ negatives: Can be daunting for first time users.
Some formatting issues with text not fitting into place for some people. The
comments I made on other people’s opinions published but then never appeared
again even when I re-entered. Because other students could edit our work could
accidently be deleted (which did not happen to me).
Blue hat/ process: The use of
computers and the internet are becoming more and more common in the classroom
on a daily basis. Education Queensland has their own guidelines to incorporate
ICTs into the classrooms to enhance the learning for current students. Wikis
can build into and beyond these guidelines.
Green hat/ creative: So many
options but a bit of research on you tube shows a trend of teachers flipping
their classrooms by teaching the content online as ‘homework’ and spending
class time evolving the online information. I think this would be particularly
helpful for my discipline of Geography. The clip below is a great example but
talks about putting video online which I could imagine inserted into a Wiki so
the students could comment before class to give the teacher a sense of how the
students are handle the content to have strategies ready for class.
Red hat/ intuitive: I LOVE the
amount of possibilities Wikis provide to the classroom and feel like if used to
their full potential could have a positive effect on all different styles of
learners and at different levels. Sadly I feel there may be resistance to the
use of Wikis as there is to all change in education.
Yellow hat/ positive: I guess my
feeling about it in the red hat is probably positive enough however the
additional points would be the home page of the Wiki which is a simple yet
effective introduction into what the Wiki is for, also the ability to add
links, images and videos allows for the students to express themselves in a way
they like.
White hat/ objective: The idea of Wikis in the classroom is
exciting for the teacher and the student however is there any data on proving
their effectiveness? How is the teacher going to monitor the Wiki without being
glued to a computer 24/7? What will happen if Wiki’s are set for homework but a
student does not have a computer at home? Or simply chooses not to do the
homework and are ill prepared in class? These are mostly logistical issues that
could be solved with a bit of thought though.
So to sum up, I am clearly in favour of the use of Wiki’s in
classroom as well as using the scaffolding of De Bono’s six thinking hats as I
learnt a lot whilst participating in the engagement activity, not just from the
content of what others had commented but also the technical aspects of adding
images and video and how to navigate around unfamiliar technology in general.
Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!!
Thanks for reading,
Nicole.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Image and Video Acknowledgements:
Flipping the Classroom clip: ‘Teaching for Tomorrow: Flipped
Teaching’ by GOODMagazine http://youtu.be/4a7NbUIr_iQ
0 comments:
Post a Comment