Support for trainees and NQTs Thinking hats Six thinking hats: a learning activity This activity was proposed by Edward de Bono in his book The Six Thinking Hats of Learning. When a student is symbolically wearing a specific hat, they must look at the situation through the perspective associated with that hat. It allows learners to think about problems from a range of perspectives and is a different way of looking at, for example, a development issue. It should help students to build up their understanding of thinking through problems or issues in a more organised way. It can be even more active if six different hats are provided to wear in class, for example a sun hat, a bowler hat, a top hat, a beret, a baseball cap and a beanie hat, or learners make simple ‘crowns’ from coloured paper in white, red, black, yellow, green and blue. Equally the idea can still be used without any hats! Provide students with some information about the issue you wish them to discuss, e.g. a newspaper report, some statistics, or a photograph. Give students the outline of what the hats are used for on the board. If you are going to place the hats around the room and they have to go to each table to think about the issue then it’s a good idea to have a label at each table as well. Colour (or type) of This hat is used to: hat white hat think about geographical facts and figures red hat think about your feelings of the place / issue black hat think about the disadvantages / bad things yellow hat think about the advantages / good things green hat think of creative ideas to tackle the geographical problem sum up the geographical issues and how they could / might be blue hat resolved Work in pairs or threes. Choose one hat to start with. Think about what that hat is used for and make notes about the development issue from that viewpoint. Move on to another hat, finishing with the last hat on the list. Debriefing/class discussion on the issue but also on how learners felt hats helped them to think about the issue. Refer to Smith, M., Walker, S. and Sugden, B. ‘The Green Variety Show 2003’, Teaching Geography, July 2003, pp 108–112 for an example of how this can be used. geography.org.uk .