ACTIVITY 9 : SIX THINKING HATS

INTRODUTION:

Six Thinking Hats were written by Dr. Edward de Bono. It is a simple, effective parallel thinking process that helps people be more productive, focused, and mindfully involved. In this activity we first started with a discussion on these thinking hats. We learned how lateral thinking can be a process to bring out creativity and insights. It involves disrupting an apparent thinking sequence and arriving at the solution from another angle.

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WARM-UP ACTIVITY:

Since there are six thinking hats, we were also divided into six groups and assigned a particular colored hat for the warm-up session. The members of my group were- Prisha, Srishti and Anindita and the hat assigned to my group was 'Yellow Thinking Hat' which symbolizes positivity. We all were asked to make a poster communicating the meaning of the hat.

The poster made by my group:

We learned that Yellow hat is associated with optimism, hope, loyalty, energy and positivity. This hat has no fixed place in the series. It can be used in the first place as it might be a start of something new and adventurous or it can be used in the third place as well while considering the values and benefits of a product.

This warm-up activity helped us understand the meaning of each hat through the visual representations created by our peers. Below is my understanding of the other thinking hats:

White- It is the most logical hat and is usually used at the beginning. It is associated with facts, information and data analysis. It is opposite of the red hat as it has a clean perspective unadulterated by emotions.

Black- Also known as the devil’s advocate, the black hat is associated with negativity or why something may not work. It spot the difficulties and dangers. Probably the most powerful and useful of the Hats but a problem if overused. It is the opposite of yellow hat.

Red- The red hat signifies feelings, hunches or intuition. Red is the color of rage and emotion which allows emotion and subjectivity to dominate. It is the opposite of white hat where everything is done with reason and logic.

Green- The green hat is symbolic of creativity, new ideas and finding alternative solutions. It allows one to do brainstorming and think out of the box. Green is also the color of nature.

Blue- The Blue Hat is used to manage or plan the next step in the thinking process. It ensures in what way the rest of hats will be used.

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MAIN ACTIVITY:

After learning about all the hats, we were given six mystery boxes to choose. My team chose the 'D' box and our mysterious product was the headphones. Now we had to apply all the aspects of the six thinking hats in this one product and then present it as a group.

Below is our group presentation:

Individual work done by me in the group were creative drawing for the Green Hat and properties of the Black and Blue Hat.

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GROUP WORKING:

Being a group activity, it really helped me a lot since we all discussed everything first and then started making the presentation. I believe that working in a group allows us to listen to other person's ideas and thus makes the outcome more efficient as the project is divided among the members. There were struggles when the ideas of the members clashed but we were able to overcome it because at the end of the day we are a team respecting each other's ideas.

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REFLECTION:

This activity was full of learning. The most interesting thing was 'learning through peers' as it made the learning more exciting since each student has a different perspective.

During the main activity when we had to put on our Green Hats and think of a creative way to present the product, I used the SCAMPER tool. So I believe that the learning we get from each activity is something that can be used anywhere which will prove to be very helpful in future.

What I observed was that each think lab activity tries to put pressure on our brains to break those shackles of conventional learning and make them see the world through a creative perspective.

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LEARNING MANTRA:

There isn't only one way of doing something, so put on your hats and look for a better way.

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