Posts Tagged ‘Thinking Skills’

Community of Enquiry

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Sometimes we can know things on our own, but it is helpful to think about it in a group. When we share ideas sometimes this can enable us to think in new ways, or look at it from a different point of view.

In RE we thought about the idea that “Pupils should be allowed to choose their teachers”, using what was called a “Community of Enquiry”, a group of people looking at a question together.

You came up with lots of good ideas and for homework I asked you to write down what difference you thought it made to think in a group. Please ask me ifyou don’t understand any of the homework; when it actually comes to lesson time it’s then a little late…

Thinking Hats

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

We’ve been using Thinking Hats as a way to help us recognise the different ways there are of thinking about something:

  • Red Hat – Feelings
  • White Hat – Information
  • Yellow Hat – Good things
  • Black Hat – Bad things
  • Green Hat – Creative things (let your mind go crazy!)
  • Blue Hat – Thinking about Thinking

We used the hats to think about this picture:

traffic lights

Of course you don’t actually need to be wearing a “thinking hat” to be able to think in the different ways you did. For homework I want you to imagine that you’re wearing the thinking hats to think about this word:

God

Take a sheet of paper (you can get one from me if you need it) and at the top write:

“When I think about God…”

Then for each “hat” write:

Red hat: and explain your feelings about God. How does the idea of God make you feel?
White hat: and explain what you know about God (you don’t have to write everything, just a few key things will do!)
Yellow hat: what are the good things about the idea of God?
Black hat: are there any problems with the idea of God? What are they?
Green hat: this is the chance to think creatively. What questions does the idea of God bring up for you?
Blue hat: this is the really hard bit. How can we think about God? Does it make your head hurt? Does talking about God make sense?

Have a go and do your best! I will never be angry at someone who has tried their best – I will be annoyed with people who haven’t bothered. If it helps you are very welcome to do this with a friend to share some ideas.

Remember that you can write a comment if you have any questions.