session 9: week 18 MD2

1. Lateral Thinking
Develop an enhanced range of thinking skills in Design and
Technology activities (LO A2, B2 & B5).
Student Survey
Session 9: Week 18

2. • The "nine dots" puzzle. The goal of the puzzle is
to link all 9 dots using four straight lines or fewer,
without lifting the pen and without tracing the
same line more than once.

4. Thinking outside the box (or thinking beyond the box) is to
think differently, unconventionally, or from a new
perspective. This phrase often refers to novel or creative
thinking. The term is thought to derive from management
consultants in the 1970s and 1980s challenging their
clients to solve the "nine dots" puzzle, whose solution
requires some lateral thinking.
Wikepedia, 2012. Thinking outside the box [online]. Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_outside_the_box
[25/11/2012].

5. Lateral thinking
• thinking outside the box
• limitations (traditional critical thinking)
• disrupt the dominant patterns

6. A "po" is an idea which moves thinking forward to a new place from
where new ideas or solutions may be found. The term was created by
Edward de Bono as part of a lateral thinking technique to suggest
forward movement, that is, making a statement and seeing where it
leads to. It is an extraction from words such as hypothesis, suppose,
possible and poetry, all of which indicate forward movement and
contain the syllable "po." Po can be taken to refer to any of the
following: provoking operation, provocative operation or provocation
operation. Also, in ancient Polynesian and the Maori, the word "po"
refers to the original chaotic state of formlessness, from which
evolution occurred. Edward de Bono argues that this context as well
applies to the term.
Wikepedia, 2012. Po (lateral thinking) [online]. Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_(lateral_thinking) [25/11/2012].

8. • Lateral thinking, (literally, sideways thinking)
• Value

9. • Education
• Need to make mistakes

10. • How do you teach pupils to see that mistakes
are good - in a society that puts great value on
not making mistakes?

11. Walk on the wild side
• Journey to work
– Objects – Feelings
– Road – Day dreamy
– People – Cold
– Trees – lonely

12. Lateral Thinking: Edward de Bono
• Answer these following questions:
– What are Edward do Bono’s thoughts on teaching
lateral thinking?
– How does lateral thinking relate to creativity?
– How could lateral thinking be part of the DT
curriculum?

13. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nw
51c/imagine..._Winter_2012_Ian_Rankin_and
_the_Case_of_the_Disappearing_Detective/

14. Creative thinking in business
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nug
RZGDbPFU&feature=fvwrel

15. 6 thinking hats
• Six distinct directions are identified and assigned a
colour. The sixth Meta thinking (Blue) is discussed in
the next section. The other 5 directions are:
• Information: (White) - considering purely what information is
available, what are the facts?
• Emotions (Red) - intuitive or instinctive gut reactions or
statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)
• Discernment (Black) - logic applied to identifying reasons to be
cautious and conservative
• Optimistic response (Yellow) - logic applied to identifying benefits,
seeking harmony
• Creativity (Green) - statements of provocation and investigation,
seeing where a thought goes