Blue Hat Thinking
The blue hat is the control hat. The blue hat thinker organizes the thinking itself. Blue hat thinking is thinking about the thinking needed to explore the subject.
The blue hat thinker is like the conductor of the orchestra. The blue hat thinker calls for the use of the other hats.
The blue hat thinker defines the subjects towards which the thinking is to be directed. Blue hat thinking sets the focus. Blue hat thinking defines the problems and shapes the questions. Blue hat thinking determines the thinking tasks that are to be carried through.
Blue hat thinking is responsible for summaries, overviews and conclusions. These can take place from time to time in the course of the thinking, and also at the end.
Blue hat thinking monitors the thinking and ensures that the rules of the game are observed. Blue hat thinking stops argument and insists on the map type of thinking. Blue hat thinking enforces the discipline.
Blue hat thinking may be used for occasional interjections which request a hat. Blue hat thinking may also be used to set up a step-by-step sequence of thinking operations which are to be followed just as a dance follows the choreography.
Even when the specific blue hat thinking role is assigned to one person, it is still open to anyone to offer blue hat comments and suggestions.
(The texts are resumes from Edward de Bono (1985) Six Thinking Hats. pp. 46, 71, 88, 114, 146, 172)
In the text there are a lot of phrasal verbs which are used with postpositions out, off, in, out and others (put on, take off, switch in, switch out). If you need to refresh your knowledge about them, go to Supplementary Material. Postpositions in Phrasal Verbs.
2 Make a resume of all types of thinking using the key words that you've singled out.
3 Practice to identify different thinking styles. Discuss:
what hat the moderator of the Round Table should wear;
what hat could be given to each of the students speaking on their university experience (see texts from Task 1 on pp. 134–135);
what hat you wore when you were writing about yourself and your university studies (see Task 1.9. on p.136). Would you like to change the color of your hat now and do it all over again?
4 Practice wearing different hats. Have a special look at text 2 on p.138 using the Yellow Hat style of thinking and give advice to its author.
THINKING SCIENTIFICALLY ‘IN A UNIVERSITY WAY’ |
At university both teachers and students are engaged in research. We are researchers. It means that we observe the world around us in a special way making its elements the objects of our research. We’ll show you what is a researcher’s way of thinking, and give you seven steps to acquire this way of thinking and apply it in your research activities: in writing course papers, diplomas and … dissertations of different kinds.
1 Look at Figure 1 ‘An Hourglass: a researcher’s starting point’. Read and translate the words. Explain in your own words how you understand the activity that is inscribed into this hourglass (build a hypothesis).
Use verbs: find, choose, set, define, carry out.
Field
O
bject
Subject-matter
Goal
Tasks
Methods
Topicality/Significance
Figure 1. An hourglass: a researcher’s starting point.
2 Let us study the upper part of the hourglass. Read the descriptions of each component:
The field of my research (investigation field) – the research context (the discipline or, if a research is interdisciplinary, a set of disciplines engaged; research school, people who work in the field).
The object of my research (research object) – the phenomenon studied (in humanitarian disciplines it may be particular texts, one’s activities or experiences etc.).
T
Can you name the field of the research that has texts as its object and structure/ vocabulary/ particular information as its subject-matter?
Read the description of «goal» and state an approximate goal of such research.
he subject-matter of my research (research subject-matter) – what precisely I study (investigate, research) in my object. For example, my object of research is some texts, so the subject-matter can be its structure, or vocabulary, or some particular information in it, some themes, etcà.
The goal of my research (research or investigation goal) – a central and crucial part of the hourglass. If you don’t consider it, the hourglass won’t work (there’s no reason to work). Here one answers the questions: why and what for the research is taking place? What’s the point in doing it? The research is to solve some (research) problem.
As you see with each new term following, the meaning of the research is more and more specified. With the help of these terms a researcher (a student) is following the path of self-identification:
where s/he is (the field)
what s/he studies (the object)
where the focus of attention is (the subject-matter)
why the activity is carried out (the goal)
3 Read the text about a university subject and define its field, object, subject-matter and goal; in this way you cover the path of both a teacher and a learner: you’ll formulate what the teacher teaches and what the student studies in the framework of a particular discipline.
Informatics is the science of information, the practice of information processing and the engineering of information systems. Informatics studies the structure, algorithms, behavior, and interactions of natural and artificial systems that store, process, access and communicate information. It also develops its own conceptual and theoretical foundations and utilizes foundations developed in other fields. Since the advent of computers, individuals and organizations increasingly process information digitally. This has led to the study of informatics that has computational, cognitive and social aspects, including study of the social impact of information technologies.
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatics (academic field)