This week I got a great idea for deepening the critical / reflective skills of my class - something I've been wanting to do for a while. @MsBeenz sent me a reflective template that uses De Bono's Hats (this site has some great resources to download and use, too) to structure the students through an amazing reflection.
Her class used them to write reviews on their ipad apps and I slightly adapted it to help the Year 6s reflect on their camp from the week before. I was REALLY surprised with the way it scaffolded some great reflections by asking them to think across the sprectrum of thinkers hats - logic and facts / feelings, positive / negative and creative / facilitative. (My own take on the hat names but I do like the 'cautions' word instead of negative, perhaps)
When some students saw the posters I put together, below, I heard, 'Oh those - we did them in the juniors!' and, 'Those are for babies aren't they?' Well, you can imagine my face - very black hat reaction! Amazingly, the reaction was pretty accepting when we got into it and I showed them how we'd use them. I even explained that a lot of businesses use them to help make big decisions.
When we've finished I might post a couple of their reflections. I think they're pretty good. Much better than hatless, anyway!
The template for the camp reflection is in the folder above, also - thanks @MsBeenz!
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1 comments:
I never said you're welcome but you really are! I love the sharing and collaborating that is opening up and am looking forward to even more next year.
I think your suggestion that the kids see certain thinking tools as age appropriate based on when they were introduced to them should raise some alarm bells. We need to look for meaningful contexts that allow kids to choose the best tool for reflection... a thinking toolkit perhaps in the classroom that allows a visual prompt that refers to the tools kids bring with them into our 2012 classes?
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