Artful Teaching with Six Hats at Foothills Fine

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Artful Teaching with Six Hats® at Foothills Fine Arts Academy Think, Learn and Teach

Artful Teaching with Six Hats® at Foothills Fine Arts Academy Think, Learn and Teach in Color! Six 4/18/2016/Edition 3 r a n mi e S ® ts a H Six Hats® Thinking Transforms Classrooms Nicole Burbank Teacher, Foothills Fine Arts Academy Teachers know that student engagement is a top priority. We want our students thinking - using their brains to apply the information we are working so hard to get across. We use questioning strategies to help students think about whatever task is at hand. If students need to find a mistake in a math problem, we ask them to go back and check the work. If students need to formulate an argument, we ask them to evaluate both sides of the argument and choose a side they can most strongly support. What if I told you there was a way to ensure that all students were thinking in the perspective that they needed to be without using wordy promptings? The Six Hats® method of thinking has transformed my students’ thinking and my classroom. Rather than explaining to a student that they need to go back and find the mistake in a problem, we can all put on our blue hats to reflect on possible mistakes. When students are conceiving an argument, we wear our yellow and black hats to weigh out the benefits and cautions of each claim, evidence, and reasoning provided. It is so simple. These hats have made student thinking more tangible. It has helped my students shape their thoughts and become harder workers because they know the mindset for every challenge we face. Socratic Seminar is a strategy I regularly use in my classroom. Prior to the discussion, students complete exercises to aid in vocabulary and comprehension as well as prepare for the seminar, including creating student -made questions to use as discussion points. With thirty students in a class, Socratic Seminar does not always run smoothly, but when we used Six Hats® with our discussion everything changed. Every student was engaged, and discussion techniques and norms were more focused and deliberate. Rather than chaos, there was control and participation. Here is how we assigned the hats to the Socratic Seminar process: • Students hold up a green hat to show they have a new idea to bring to the discussion (creativity). • Students hold up a yellow hat if they agree with the stated argument and can add more evidence and reasoning (benefits). • Students hold up a black hat if they disagree with the stated argument and can provide evidence and reasoning (cautions).

When student thinking is defined, not by the teacher, but by the students themselves,

When student thinking is defined, not by the teacher, but by the students themselves, higher order thinking processes can more easily be accessed. The Six Hats® method of thinking changed my classroom for the better. I bet it would change yours too! Nicole Burbank, Teacher, Foothills • Students hold up a white hat if they agree, but cannot add more to the discussion at the current time (facts). • Students hold up a red hat if they have a feeling about the current argument, but cannot provide evidence or reasoning (emotions). • Students hold up a blue hat if they feel the current argument needs further reflection, or a specific topic should be revisited. This is especially useful when students trail off during the discussion (reflection). The correlation between the use of the hats and students’ thinking was beneficial for the whole group. As a class, the students decided that using the hats during the discussion made Socratic Seminar more fun because everybody was able to work together. They liked that everybody had a voice, even if a peer did not call on them to speak. It was also mentioned that there was less frustration because they spent less time talking over each other and more time working together to reach a conclusion. When student thinking is defined, not by the teacher, but by the students themselves, higher order thinking processes can more easily be accessed. The Six Hats® method of thinking changed my classroom for the better. I bet it would change yours too! Please send comments, articles, stories, student work to Frannymcaleer@Learnerslink. com for the next edition. Franny Mc. Aleer, Teacher and Presenter 724 -413 -6001 Blue Hat Thinking Tip, the Process! – Point of View! Experiences You Bring to the Thinking As you expand your ideas about the process of reflection, another thought is to imagine various perspectives. Consider what we see in this picture, moving farther and farther away from a place, a situation, a person? When you are at Foothills Fine Arts Academy, what do you see? Now move farther away, what do you see? What might a student, parent, visitor, bird, think about Foothills Fine Arts Academy? What might someone think about Arizona? What might something think about Arizona and its relationship to the world view above?