How to Use Hexagonal Thinking in Any Content Area

Are you looking for a way to help your students understand concepts and definitions beyond rote memorization? Perhaps you’re searching for a way for your students to understand the relationships between topics and vocabulary. I often noticed that when I assigned vocabulary—whether in isolation or related to a new topic—my students memorized words and their exact definitions. They could repeat them back to me verbatim. However, when I asked them to explain the cause and effect relationship or connection, or to express a deeper understanding, they struggled to explain beyond mechanical learning.

To take your students from recall of recited information to an application of a deeper understanding, hexagonal thinking may just be the activity that you were looking for.

What Is Hexagonal Thinking?

Although hexagonal thinking originated in the business world, it’s an engaging activity to incorporate into your classroom. Think of it as an elevated Venn diagram. Students write terms on pieces of paper that are cut into hexagonal shapes. Then, students glue the shapes to a piece of paper and connect the sides of the hexagons to match terms that represent a cause-effect relationship or that are connected in some way, ultimately creating a web of terms to represent a concept.

The most interesting part is when the students give explanations about what to connect where, and why. One of the best things about this activity is that no two webs are the same. Each student, or group of students, can create a unique display of their understanding of any given topic.

In a world of instant answers and being able to find any definition at their fingertips, hexagonal thinking supports the key competences for deeper learning, including encouraging focus, problem-solving, deeper thinking, collaboration, resilience, and deeper discovery, while encouraging students to be self-directed. Students are also prompted to use their voice and improve their communication skills.

Regardless of the age and grade of the students, this fun, engaging activity can be used in all grade levels and subjects. Even high school students like to go back to cutting and pasting and being creative.

Use the template below to get started.

First, hand out a page with hexagons printed on it, and then have students write terms on the hexagons. Next, students cut out the hexagons and glue them on another piece of paper. After placing their hexagons, students should draw or place arrows on top of the hexagons to identify the connections that they want to explain. Finally, students should provide clear and concise explanations for their identified connections and relationships.

9 Ways to Differentiate This Activity

1. Reduce: Limit the required number of hexagons and/or number of arrows you want students to use. Students may be overwhelmed with how many vocabulary terms there are and not know how to connect them. By selecting the key terms and narrowing the word list, students may find it easier to connect the terms. Similarly, asking students to explain two connections, say, instead of five can make the task less daunting and easier to tackle. Then once students build their confidence, they can add more.
2. Include a word bank: If students are overwhelmed by where to begin, provide a version with a word bank that includes relevant terms and concepts.
3. Partial completion: If students need more support, provide a completed version of the web with some or all of the terms filled in; students just have to choose which connections to explain.
4. Demonstrate connections: To make the web less overwhelming for students, place arrows on the most important terms you want them to explain. Students can always add more arrows once they’re comfortable with the lesson.
5. Provide guiding language: Include sentence starters in the arrows or provide fill-in-the-blank sentences.
6. Enrichment activity: For your fast finishers, have students place an arrow to where three hexagons connect, and require them to explain the connection among the terms.
7. Collaboration: Allow students to work in groups collaborating on designing the web.
8. Review and respond: Have students or a group of students design the web, then trade webs with another student or group. Challenge them to explain the connections that the other student(s) made.
9. Focus on pictures: Instead of words, your emerging readers, writers, and multilingual learners can fill the web with images.

If your students start with the most support, they could always level up and try making their own web, once they’ve had a little help getting started. The beauty of hexagonal webs is that there are many ways to complete them. So, even if one version was done for them, they can still create a new web.

Hexagonal thinking also allows students to assess their understanding of concepts if they can’t decide why terms should be connected or can’t explain relationships. This activity takes the pressure off for students who fear not “getting it right,” since there is no right way to connect the terms. What matters most is that students can defend their rationale. Determining where and how to get the hexagons to fit also builds problem-solving skills.

When to Implement Hexagonal Thinking in Your Classroom

This activity can be used as an alternative assessment, where students can showcase a deeper understanding of concepts, terms, events, characters, and studies throughout the unit.

Additionally, students can start a small web at the beginning of a unit and continue to add more terms, concepts, people, etc., as the unit progresses. Hexagonal webs would be a great exit ticket, do-now, or homework activity.

In a time when many teachers are retreating from edtech, this activity provides differentiated opportunities for students to show what they know. However, this can absolutely be enhanced by using digital educational technology tools like Google Slides, Kami, Book Creator, Formative, Wayground, and Figma to provide accommodations such as text to speech, speech to text, translations, visual supports, drag and drop, and more.