Teach Better - Work Less - Achieve More: Six Degrees of Information

You won't find the Six Degrees of Information EduProtocol in any of the EduProtocol Field Guides--that's because I made it myself! This EduProtocol relies on a concept called "hexagonal thinking." When you place an idea on a hexagon, it has six sides where connections could be made to other ideas. When you place many ideas on many hexagons, the discussion about where to connect what will be different every time. Hexagonal thinking provides a springboard for a totally creative discussion. When you give a small group of students a deck of hexagons and ask them to connect them however they choose, every group will come up with a different web for different reasons. Along the way they’ll hopefully question each other and dig deeply into the concepts on the cards, arguing about which idea connects more to an important concept and which example deserves one of those precious six sides.

Academic Goals

• Students make connections between various concepts and/or people
• Students become more comfortable communicating by explaining one's reasoning
• Develop skills that can be used later in larger writing projects

Teacher Big Ideas

• Get kids talking
• Students use relevant evidence when supporting their own points in writing and speaking, making their reasoning clear to the reader or listener.
• Verbal articulation supports writing

Description

While hexagonal thinking is not new in the world of business and innovation, it’s just making its way into the classroom. It’s a method for considering the connections between ideas and finding the nuances in those connections.

Prepare for the Activity

1. Identify several concepts and/or people that you want students to discuss and prepare a slide deck filled with hexagons that are labeled with each concept/person. Alternatively, provide students with paper hexagons for them to discuss and arrange manually.

Instructions

1. Arrange students in small groups of up to 6 students. Assign each student a number.
2. Share the slide deck you prepared (or the paper version) with each group. If using Slides, share it with one person and have them invite their peers to collaborate.
3. Students discuss the concepts and make connections between them by arranging them in a way that demonstrates how and why the different ideas and options connect. Conversations should be about showing how and why students think the different ideas and options connect. Everyone will see things differently, and that’s OK. You need to have people listening and moving pieces to create the web, people debating, people asking questions. Students should continue talking until they find the connections that stick. As students discuss their ideas, they can use the text to find supporting evidence for why they think their connections are strong ones. Each hexagon can connect to up to six others. Arrange and rearrange until everyone in the group feels they have the strongest hexagon web in place that they can.
4. After the web is complete, give students time to explain 6 of the connections on their web by writing a short explanation on their designated slide. This can be assigned collaboratively with one explanation per group member on a shared Slide or each student can explain 6 connections on their own Slide.

See the slide deck below for detailed instructions and examples, and feel free to make a copy of the template.