Reflective Practices

I have been very pleased with the progress in this area, by both my class and myself this term. I had been thinking about how to incorporate De Bono's Thinking Hats into my programme more effectively and in real contexts. I hit on the idea of having a blank, self-inking Thinking Hat stamp made. The reason for this is that the pupils can colour it in depending on what coloured Thinking Hat they were focusing on. I trialled the stamps, using the end of week Reflective Log as a vehicle for this.
I initiated it by first of all reviewing the Thinking Hats and the thinking around each colour. I printed off a Thinking Hats chart for each group and laminated it. This was a useful prompt for them as they worked.
We discussed the blue hat and for this purpose we looked at the graphic organisers we had used over the week to record our thinking.
Subsequently we analysed our learning using the white, green and yellow hats, taking each hat, discussing its meaning and how it related to our week.
Looking over the entries this strategy worked really. I will be really interested to see how it works with this week's reflection. I would like to get to the stage where the children choose which hats they will be reflecting on -increased independence.