Identifying Dominant Ideas and Crucial Factors
A set of practice exercises to train the skill of recognizing the most important ideas and key factors in a given passage, debate, or design project, without judgment or ranking.
THE IDEA
Practice
- A newspaper article is read out to the students who then have to note down:
(1). The dominant idea (or ideas).
(2). The crucial factors.
When the results have been collected the teacher goes through them and lists the different choices. A person making a particular choice may be asked to explain why he made that choice. This is not in order that the choice be justified or in order to show that it was not as good as other choices but in order to elaborate a particular point of view. There is no attempt to disqualify any of the choices or to rank them in order of excellence.
If it is clear that some of the students have not grasped the point about dominant ideas and crucial factors then one concentrates on those answers which make the point most clearly. If none of them do then the teacher has to supply his own choice of dominant idea and crucial factor for the passage used.
It is not a good idea to ask for choices of dominant ideas and then to list them on the blackboard as was suggested in previous sections. This is because a choice which seems to be very good will inhibit any further suggestions. It is far better to let people work out what seems dominant or crucial to them and then to show the variety of answers.
- Radio or tape recorder
Instead of the teacher reading the passage out it could be a feature programme on the radio or something taped off the radio. The advantage of a tape recording is its repeatability.
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Instead of listening to a passage being read out the students can be given passages to study for themselves. This is rather different since there is more time to go over the piece, the interpretation is not so determined by the way it has been read out and one can go back and reexamine what has been written to see if it supports a particular point of view.
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Discussion
Two students are asked to debate a subject in front of the class. One can either choose students who declare they have opposite views on a particular subject or else ask the students to debate from opposite points of view whether or not they hold those views. The rest of the class listens to the debate and notes down the dominant idea and crucial factors in the discussion. In order to try and check the validity of these the other students can ask the debaters questions.
- Design project
Either in the course of a design project or in discussing the results of a design project undertaken by others the students can try and pick out the dominant ideas and crucial factors. In this case they can examine the crucial factors to see whether they really are crucial and to see what would happen if one did not include them in the design. The same thing could be done with dominant ideas: the students first picking out the ideas and then seeing how they could escape them.
Although it would be easy to combine this sort of practice session with the lateral thinking processes described before (and those to be described later) it is probably better not to do so. If one were to combine the process of generating alternatives with the process of picking out the dominant idea then there is a tendency to pick out a dominant idea which fits nicely in with the alternative one can think of. The choice of dominant ideas and crucial factors soon becomes tailored to show how clever one is at avoiding them. For the moment it is enough to become skilled at finding dominant ideas and crucial factors.
When to use it
Analyzing a business report to pinpoint the key strategic insight and critical data points.
Evaluating a political speech to understand the central message and the most important arguments.
Studying a scientific paper to extract the main hypothesis and the pivotal experimental results.
During a design review, identifying the dominant design concept and the crucial constraints that must be addressed.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Newspaper Article Exercise
A teacher reads a newspaper article aloud. Students listen and note the dominant idea(s) and crucial factors. After collecting responses, the teacher lists them without ranking, asking some students to explain their choices to elaborate different perspectives.
Debate Analysis
Two students debate a topic from opposite viewpoints. The rest of the class listens and identifies the dominant ideas and crucial factors in the debate. Afterwards, they can question the debaters to check the validity of their identifications.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think about a recent news article. What do you consider the dominant idea? What factors seem crucial? Would someone with a different background identify the same ones?
In a team meeting, try to listen for the dominant idea without immediately proposing alternatives. Afterwards, reflect on how the dominant idea shaped the discussion.
How might the process of identifying dominant ideas and crucial factors help you in solving a complex problem? What pitfalls could arise if you combine it with generating alternatives too early?
Often confused with
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Lateral Thinking A Textbook of Creativity (Edward de Bono)