What works?

Today Nathan, Aisling and Ibrahim did their 2nd training of BTEC 1st drama students using the debating question: "Should EMA be cut?".

In many many respects it was a much more successful session.

(1) Sam Punnett, the tutor for this group who recorded the session on flip camera, remarked at the end that "Surprisingly, ome people who never speak up did for the first time."  Ibrahim thought this happened because the 6 hat sets up a situation that is informal and calm. Everyone has an equal chance to speak and that prompted everyone to speak. Plus there is the buiilt in expecation that everyone should contribute something.
 
(2)The horn prop is really agood tool in these sessions. Aisling & Nathan said "It shows we are not really teachers - makes it less formal and awkward. Breaks the barrier between us."
 

 (3) At the end of the session - when the Blue Hat was out to review what had taken place - two students said that they missed using the old for and against debating style of argument.  They said they missed the energy and passion of a debating style. Aisling agreed but also pointed out that they'd discovered that people could have an intense and long argument which feels good but which doesn't actually include any facts at all! That runs on pure emotion and opinions. Ibrahim thought that maybe these two students missed the old style debating format because they had not gotten use to 6 hats yet. He thought by the time they had practised it a couple of times they'd see the benefit. Nathan said it was because it wasn't a real discussion yet, mainly because we made them write everything down - one person for each hat, using markers on a large flip chart paper. This was, in a bit of a mistake, because it slowed everything down and made '..us seem like teachers . saying write it down etc'. This was a big discovery: that writing down got in the way. Nathan pointed out that the group were thinking in 6 hats but THEY were NOT DISCUSSING in six hats mode. Good point Nathan
So rather than make students write it down -which is  bit teacherly and laborious and slow, Karla will have to do it instead. This will free everyone up and make it more energetic, hopefully.

(4) One idea to keep the energy in the room: was to have a quick debate with class before so they get a bit involved using FOR and AGAINST style argument to start with. Then bring in 6 hats technique to contrast with that way of thinking and talking and discussing. 

(5) TOPIC NEEDS TO BE SOMETHING THEY CARE ABOUT - Aisling brought this up. The EMA issue was definitely close to their hearts. All debates using parallel or 6 hats thinking needs to be on specifically emotive issues.

(6) Aisling proposed a better order for the hats based on today's experience. White hat, green hat, yellow hat were really productive..and so she thought that.maybe we should structure for that. Aisling suggests RED, WHITE, GREEN first ...and then do black and then end with yellow - before doing round up with BLUE. After the session, debate ensued between the 3 of them about what might be the best order of the hats. Aisling reckons green hat should be before black hat because, today for instance, the learners had so many ideas about alternatives. Nathan says maybe we can do green twice. His point was that the green hat should be responding to info on all the different hats to give a different choice and you can't do that if you haven't had all the hats out - specifically the problems. Ibrahim & Aisling disagreed - they pointed out that Edward De Bono always says the hats can be in ANY order that is appropriate to the group or the question. Aisling said that it might avoid having to keep halting everything and keep saying 'no no we are not on that hat yet, we can talk about that later'. Its about being intuitive - trying to figure out what the group needs to speak about.
Eventually, everyone thought Aisling's idea of having green hat thinking come up twice could work and they should experiment in the next session with BTEC Media - either two green hats or at least put green hat before black hat. Teasing out alternatives seems like a good idea.

** Next week's question is  "VIDEOGAMES ARE HAVING NEGATIVE EFFECT ON YOUNG PEOPLE" - how will green hat thinking work with that???