Thinking
Skills
Topic : Introduction to Creative Thinking and Dr.
de Bono's Thinking Methods.
Aims : Familiarization with the concept and format of Thinking Skills Sessions. This session should also serve as an ice-breaker and to stimulate the children's creativity.
Objective/Goal:
By the end of the session the students will:
1.
Feel more familiar with the setting of the lesson,
2.
Know who Dr. de Bono is and what he invented,
3.
Have stimulated his/her creativity,
4.
Know the lesson ground rules
Warmer
Children
will say their name and associate a colour according to how they feel on the
day.
Activity 1:
1. What are Thinking Skills? (5 minutes)
Teacher should elicit responses from the pupils and write them on a whiteboard or flipchart paper.
2.
Teacher explains what thinking skills are and that the pupils will be learning a
method designed by Dr. Edward de Bono. (5 minutes)
Rationale
: It
is important to involve the pupils from the very beginning. This would
give them a sense of ownership and it will be more likely to get full
participation throughout the programme. This style will also be a catalyst
to stimulate metacognitive talk and pupil-pupil interaction.
Activity 2:
Who is Dr. Edward de Bono? (5 minutes)
Background
information about Dr. de Bono can be found at the bottom of this lesson plan.
Activity 3 :
NSWE (North, South, West, East) (6 minutes)
Pupils work in pairs. One person in every pair is to write.
1. They are asked to write down whatever they can see in the room. It is important to stress that they have to try and spot everything. Allocate 3 minutes for this first part.
2. After 3 minutes, the pupils are asked to stop writing.
3. Now the focus is not on the whole room but on half. The teacher is to give clear indications of which half of the room s/he is referring to.
4. The pupils are given a further 3 minutes for this task. Pupils are not allowed to make references to the other list. They need to write everything from scratch.
5. After 3 minutes the teacher is to stop the pupils from writing and ask them how many they managed to write in both instances.
N.B. In the case of younger pupils or illiterate pupils, the teacher can elicit the responses and write them on the board or flipchart paper. It is suggested that the teacher divides the board into two before starting the activity in order to make it clearer for the pupils to make the distinction
Processing:
Teacher asks the pupils the following questions to stimulate metacognitive talk. (7 minutes)
1. How many did you have in the first instance?
2. How many did you have in the second instance?
3. What can you notice?
4. Why do you think that this is so?
At this point the teacher should explain that the pupils generated more ore less the same number of responses in both cases because they focused more in the second instance as they only had half the room to concentrate on. This should be the backbone to the Thinking Programme as the aim of the tools is to help pupils to focus more thus becoming more efficient.
Activity 4 :
Creative Thinking Exercise ( 3 minutes)
Pupils are shown or given a paperclip per pair. They are asked to try and generate as many different uses for this paperclip as possible. They can change its shape, add others and imagine a bigger one.
This activity will help the pupils to realise that we need to think beyond what is obvious to reap the full benefits out of every situation.
Pupils now share the outcome of their thoughts (5 minutes)
Activity
5 :
Recap and concluding comments (7 minutes)
Teacher
summarises what was covered during the session. Alternatively the teacher
could elicit what was covered from the pupils.
Materials
needed:
Handout: who is Edward de Bono?
Loose sheets of paper (Unless they have the Thinking Diary already in hand)
Flipchart paper and markers if there is no board in the room being used for the sessions.
Portable reverse timer
Paperclips of different colours and sizes