Program Description

Why is thinking usually dull, ineffective, biased and un-creative?  What does "out of the box" really mean and how can we truly attain this?
 

This series of programs, modeled on the work of Edward de Bono, will help participants in tackling basic problems in thinking and how to sharpen their mind to ensure that their thinking is continually fun, objective, perceptive and, most of all, original.

Such thinking will effectively change the way you view and engage with the issues with your students, colleagues and community.

Who Should Attend?

Educators seeking to improve their thinking, employ new teaching tools in their classes and make communication with their students more efficient.

Anyone who wishes to make thinking an enjoying, systematic and creative habit to be applied to all areas of education, business and life.

Program Objectives

Participants will learn about how to:

• Develop systematic, broad and creative thinking
• Understand and overcome the common problems of human thinking
• Systematically focus their thinking for more efficient results
• Generate original ideas in an efficient way
• Avoid problems of ‘group-think'
• Develop richer perception-maps of their world
• Embrace the habit and environment of curiousity and channel this towards future value

Program Outline

Workshop 1: The 6 Thinking Hats

• The difference between directed and non-directed thinking
• The various ‘software programs' your brain has
• Distinguishing Between Adversarial & Parallel Thinking
• Tactics to apply directed thinking in decision-making and evaluations
• Should there be a "time and place" for thinking?

Workshop 2: Lateral Thinking

• A (very) brief history of thinking (from Socrates to Steve Jobs)
• Why critical thinking is insufficient
• Why logic and experience hinders creativity
• Basic principle of creativity and ‘lateral thinking'
• Tactics to facilitate creativity

Workshop 3: More Tools for Scaffolding Learning (forthcoming)

• More attention-directing tools to focus thinking
• Tactics to help structure thinking in the classroom
• Thinking games
• The future of human thinking

Schedule & Duration

Workshops can be arranged according to the convenience of individuals, schools and departments. Each workshop lasts approximately 2 hours.

Contact

Please call the Teaching & Learning Center (ext.332) for more information or to schedule a workshop.