Lateral Thinking by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141938318
Publisher: Penguin Group UK
Published: 1970-04-05T05:00:00+00:00

Practice

The classroom is divided up into groups of a suitable size for a brainstorming session. Each group elects its own chairman. If there is any difficulty about this then the teacher makes a suggestion. The notetaker is also selected in each group. It may be useful to have an auxiliary notetaker who can relieve the first one halfway through the session.

The general principles of the brainstorming session are explained with emphasis on the following points:

1. No criticism or evaluation.

2. Say anything you like no matter how wrong or ridiculous.

3. Do not try and develop ideas at length or make speeches, a few words are enough.

4. Give the notetaker a chance to get things down.

5. Listen to the chairman.

A warm up problem is then given to each group and they have a ten minute warm up session. At the end of this session they go straight into the main session for thirty minutes.

The teacher may sit in on the groups in turn. It is better not to be too intrusive. Few comments are made at the time but mental notes are kept for discussion afterwards. The only thing which justifies an intervention is any tendency to evaluate or criticize.

At the end of the sessions the groups come together again. In turn the notetakers from each group read out the list of ideas. The teacher may then comment as follows:

1. Comments on the actual session stressing perhaps the tendency to evaluate or the tendency to be too timid.

2. Comments on the lists of ideas. These could point out the similarity of some of the ideas, the originality of others.

3. Comments on the tone of the ideas. Some of the suggestions may have been quite sensible others quite ridiculous. If the suggestions do tend to be too solemn the teacher might point out that at least some of the suggestions during the sessions should be outrageous enough to cause a laugh.

4. The teacher then adds some ideas and suggestions of his own concerning the problems that have been discussed.

In going through the lists of suggestions the teacher may pick out some of the more outrageous ideas and proceed to show how they can be useful. This is done by extracting the functional principle of the idea and developing it further.

The general impression that should be encouraged is that the brainstorming session is a generative situation in which one should not be too selfconscious. In practice there is a tendency for some students to show off and try to be deliberately humorous if they know that their suggestions are to be read out to the assembled class. One has to deal with that situation as best one can without denying people the right to be outrageous. One way is to ask the person to explain the idea further.

Suggested problems for use in brainstorming sessions might include:

The design of money.

The lack of sufficient playgrounds.

The need for examinations.

Mining under the sea.

Providing enough television programmes for everyone to see what they want to see.

Making the desert fertile.

Heating a house.

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