Learning Dominoes
When a domino falls, it causes an effect that is greater than its own weight. The same principle applies to certain learning challenges and their impact on students. These challenges can be so powerful that they cause students to compensate for their difficulties. This compensation can build until it is too much and then the student may not learn. It is important to focus on teaching and assessing for basic skills so that students do not experience a domino effect that hinders their progress.
In a game of domino, each player starts with 28 small oblong pieces marked with 0-6 pips on each end. Each piece is usually twice as long as it is wide, which makes it easier to re-stack them after use. Dominoes also have a value that is determined by the number of spots or pips. A domino that has more pips is considered to have a higher value than a domino with fewer pips.
The most popular game played with dominoes involves scoring or blocking games. In a scoring game, players compete to lay down dominoes of a particular value before their opponents. Blocking games include matador, chicken foot and Mexican train. Dominoes are also used in a variety of educational activities to develop counting and number recognition skills.
Many of the most famous domino setups are created by Hevesh, a professional artist who works with dominoes to create impressive displays. She has a YouTube channel with more than 2 million subscribers and has worked on projects for movies, television shows, and events. Hevesh has even helped to set a Guinness record for the largest domino display ever made. Her largest installations take several nail-biting minutes to fall.
To create her mind-blowing domino displays, Hevesh follows a version of the engineering-design process. She begins with a theme or purpose and brainstorms images or words that might relate to it. She then sketches out a plan and creates a model using foam core or cardboard.
In business, the concept of domino theory is used to describe a strategy that affects other areas of an organization as well. For example, a marketing strategy might cause a company to boost its advertising budget or increase the frequency of its customer outreach. This change, in turn, will lead to a greater customer base and more revenue.
In the 1977 Frost/Nixon interviews, Richard Nixon defended his policy of supporting anticommunist forces in Latin America on Domino Theory grounds. He argued that if the United States prevented communist Chile and Cuba from becoming a red sandwich between them, it would prevent Latin American nations from supporting a Communist dictatorship in the future. Ultimately, the Domino Theory approach did not prevent the rise of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. However, it did demonstrate the value of forming alliances to control countries with potentially hostile ambitions. It was the first step in a process that eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites.