Lesson Plan

Introduction to decisions and decision making

Materials:

1. Critical thinking and decision making lab notes
2. Thoughts on critical thinking and decision making steps lab notes
3. Six step decision making process fact sheet
4. Worksheet for a Six Step Decision Making Cycle fact sheet
5. Circles of influence diagram fact sheet

Focus question:

How do people make good decisions?

Sub focus questions:

1. How do people make decisions?
2. What influences their decisions?
3. What different options do people have to help them?
4. How are options or choices determined?
5. How are positive and negative consequences determined for the options?
6. How are the options evaluated?
7. What steps do good problem solvers or critical thinkers use to make good decisions?

Learning outcomes:

• Decision can be made with little or no thinking or with deep comprehensive critical thinking
• A person who uses a comprehensive decision making process is more likely to think critically and make better decisions.

Initial thoughts on critical thinking and decision making - Exploration

1. Give students lab notes one
2. Put students in groups
3. Tell them to answer the questions:
   1. How do people make decisions?
   2. What influences their decisions?
   3. What different options do people have to help them?
   4. How are options or choices determined?
   5. How are positive and negative consequences determined for the options?
   6. How are the options evaluated?
4. Let students share their answers. Accept all answers during exploration.

Develop a six step decision making process - Invention

1. After students share their answers with the class, go over each question and have them fill in additional information from below as you think necessary.
   1. How do people make decisions? Go with their gut. React without thinking. Use critical thinking to develop and use a process that follows a series of steps:
   2. What influences their decisions? Their emotions, past experiences, values, parents, friends, desire, rewards ... (Circles of influence diagram)
   3. What different options do people have to help them?They can make a decision based on critical thinking, a logical process, consider what other authority figures would suggest, seek help, listen to a friend's advice, ...
   4. How are options or choices determined? Brain stormed ideas, from past experiences, listening to what others suggest ...
   5. How are positive and negative consequences determined for the options? Brain storm, from past experiences, listening to what others suggest ...
   6. How are the options evaluated? With the consequences, ethics, legal, moral, and values applied to consequences and risks.
2. Give students lab notes two
3. Ask. Do you think people who use critical thinking and make good decisions use different ways to make decisions? Yes.
4. Ask. How do you think they are different? Some probably are more like guesses, others think about a few things, and others are a lot more comprehensive in what they think about before making a decisions.
5. Tell students, With out doing any research what are the steps that come to your mind that you would think of using? Accept all answers. This will assess what they might remember from previous experiences.
6. Respond to student's answers to the previous question, if possible by relating their answers to the six steps in the six step decision making process.
7. Tell students that critical thinkers use a decision making process that includes steps? For example a six step process might include:
   1. Identify a problem or opportunity
   2. Focus on the situation and collect information
   3. Identify choices, solutions, and implementation
   4. Analyze consequences and values for all situations
   5. Make a decision and implement
   6. Evaluate.
8. Tell them that knowing what each step is helps people to think more critically about a situation when making a decision. However, the more a person uses a decision making process the more they have to consider.
9. Tell them you are going to share a very comprehensive fact sheet that has these six steps with several ideas for each step. And in groups they are to review the ideas for each step and write on their lab notes page ideas that they want to include for each step to use to make decisions for some scenarios they will be given later. For example. Step one could write - be sure to accurately define the problem and consider out of the box ideas. Remind them the are to take the ideas and make them so they can use them.
10. Share students notes and check to see if they are missing any important ideas.

Discovery Activities

Select from the categories below the Discovery activities you want students to analyze with the six step decision making process. Support information for specific ideas and scenarios include: historical, in school, out of school, substance abuse, decision dilemmas, belief and value analysis.

Specific historical example: President Johnson's Trial

Focus question - How would the decision making process fit with historical decisions?

Suggested procedure:

1. Give students the Fact sheet - President Johnson's Trial timeline.
2. Go over the fact sheet to give students the essence of the legal and political complexities of the time. I believe it would be interesting for groups to analyze different focuses.
• A focus on legality
  • Did President Johnson violate The Tenure of Office Act? Remove a cabinet member without Senate approval? The Tenure of Office Act was passed to make it illegal for the President to fire a cabinet member. However, the Act was later found (1926) to be unconstitutional so it was.
  • Did President Johnson refuse to implement legislation?
  • Did President Johnson disgrace congress?
    
• Focus on political actions that would result in what would be best for the future of the United States of America. Should President Johnson be removed from office for his actions with respect to amnesty, reconstruction, and treatment of Black Americans?
  • Should southern states be readmitted to the union with or without consequences?
  • If consequences, what kind and how punitive?
  • Should property be returned or kept as compensation for war?
  • Should Blacks be given compensation, education, right to vote, .... ?

Should the two ideas be separate or combined?


3. Give students a Six step decision making for a historical scenario lab note page.
4. Ask. Why they think the steps are in a circle? Because the steps don't have to be worked on one at a time from first to sixth. Yes. It is not only okay to skip around it is probably a good idea.
5. Put students in groups
6. Tell them to use the six step cycle and the President Johnson fact sheet to outline a decision to support or reject the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.
   1. Problem or opportunity
      Vote to impeach Johnson or not for ...
      Vote to remove him from office or not for ...
   2. Focus on situation & gather information
      There were two general goals: continue with what President Johnson was doing or to do something that was more punitive and pro Black American based around issues like:
      • Treatment of freed slaves. Assure that Blacks are set free, given right to vote, serve in office, be educated, and provided assistance to economically live as free men.
      • Assistance to poor, refugees, and others displaced.
        
      • Punishment, if any, for those who fought and assisted the Confederacy. Extreme punishment, no punishment, or exchanged a reduction of punishment when certain goals were achieved and then made permanent. 
      • What southern culture would be. A return to the way it was before the war with minimal change. Or something with more integration of Blacks and Whites. 
        
      • Should all southerners receive extreme punishment, more lenient, with pardons, land and property, except slaves returned?
      • Should southern politicians return to office or run for election without consequences? 
        
      • Should Blacks be segregated or removed from the country
      • Should Blacks be left on their own to create their own systems, education, medical, economic ... ?
        
   3. Choices, solutions, implementations
   • Impeach or not impeach on a charge of misconduct  
     
   • Impeach and send to trial to find guilty or innocent of a crime and remove from office. 
     Note - Can impeach with the idea that he wasn't guilty of a legal crime for which he would be found not guilty during the trial by the Senate.
   4. Analysis of consequences and values of situations
      Can impeach or not impeach along with either removal from office or don't remove from office.
      There was a power struggle between the ideas outlined above ....
      (Separation of the powers between executive branch and legislative branch)
   • If it was the intent of Congress (legislative branch) to have their Acts carried out as and Stanton attempted to do, but was blocked by Johnson, then he is guilty of obstruction and not following The Tenure of Office Act. However, as it was later shown to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, it could be reasoned that Johnson could have asked the Supreme Court to rule on the legality of his dismissal of Stanton, and it would have found he had the authority to dismiss him.
   • If Johnson, as President, is the leader of the nation (head of the executive branch), then he has the authority to make executive decisions that are constitutional and could only be impeached and removed from office if he committed crimes of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. While his decisions on how to reset the country  might have been unpopular they were not treasonous, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. While some of his reasons for his vetoes may have been unethical, without the 14th amendment, which was not yet law, they were at the time legal. 
   • Consequences and values. 
     If Johnson is impeached and not found guilty, which is what happened. It could be argued that the policies implemented lead to segregation and slow incremental changes for Black Americans rather than significant change more timely after the Civil War. For example: If Johnson were found guilty after he was impeached, then he might have been replaced by someone who would have helped Stanton implement changes that would have been more supportive of integration and positive change for Black Americans. 
   5. Decide implement
      Yes or no
   6. Evaluate
      Historically did it make the country better?
7. Share results and discuss different analysis as the facts presented flow logically to the conclusions made.
8. Process decision making results with the scoring guide suggestions.

General suggestions for investigating decision making categories:

General procedure for Historical scenarios:

Focus question - How would the decision making process fit with historical decisions?

Suggested procedure:

1. Have students review factual information related to a historical situation Samples.
2. Give students the Six step decision making for a historical scenario lab note page.
3. Ask. Why they think the steps are in a circle. Because the steps don't have to worked on one at a time from first to sixth. Yes. It is not only okay to skip around it is probably a good idea.
4. Put students in groups
5. Tell them to use the six step cycle and the facts they researched to outline a decision for the historical scenario.
6. Share results and discuss different analysis as the facts presented flow logically to the conclusions made.
7. Process decision making results with the scoring guide suggestions.

General procedure for In school scenarios:

1. Present an in school scenario.
   • The halls are empty as you round a corner and see someone you know really well is taking stuff from a locker that you know isn't their locker. You quickly back up and wait till you hear the locker close and he or she moves into another classroom.
     Later that day you hear that the students whose locker you saw your classmate taking stuff from has reported several items stolen (cards, gift cards, and some other things their friends had given them in the morning for his or her birthday) What do you do?
   • Scenario example written as a play.
2. Ask how they feel about the situation?
3. Ask how they feel about each person?
4. What affects those feelings?
5. What values, ethics, rules, laws... apply?
6. Would they feel differently if one of the students was a friend? Brother or sister?
7. If the setting changed like: Between classes, during class, in a mostly empty classroom, or a classroom with everyone present.
8. After discussing how they feel,
9. Tell them to use the six step cycle and the facts they researched to outline a decision for the historical scenario.
10. Share results and discuss different analysis as the facts presented flow logically to the conclusions made.
11. Process decision making results with the scoring guide suggestions.

At a friend's home example:

1. Present a scenario
   • You are at a friend's house, alone, with him or her. He or she stands up and says come on... Lets have a (drink wine, beer, ...; smoke ...; or watch a video ... ) He or she has poured two drinks and reaches one to you ... ; He or she pulls two cigarettes and lights up handing one to you; types in the search box and presses return ... What do you do?
   • Substance abuse scenarios
   • Decision dilemmas
2. Ask how they feel about the situation?
3. Ask how they feel about each person?
4. What affects those feelings?
5. What values, ethics, rules, laws... apply?
6. Would they feel differently if one of the students was a friend? Brother or sister?
7. If the setting changed like: Between classes, during class, in a mostly empty classroom, or a classroom with everyone present.
8. After discussing how they feel,
9. Tell them to use the six step cycle and the facts they researched to outline a decision for the historical scenario.
10. Share results and discuss different analysis as the facts presented flow logically to the conclusions made.
11. Process decision making results with the scoring guide suggestions.

Personal example:

1. Create your own personal scenario. It may be a situation you had to make or just know about, that you are willing to write about and share...
2. You may think about your decision in what ever way you feel comfortable with. You can review what you actually did or you may change what you did and review it differently either positively or negatively. It is okay for the situation to be changed and made fictional. We are looking at the process and different ideas can provide learning experiences.
3. Use the Six Step Decision Making Cycle worksheet to guide and record your ideas to share later.

4. Share an discuss in groups and as a class.

Summary

Have students complete a summary for the unit on the lab notes summary page.

• What was most import for you to learn about critical thinking?
• What is the importance of knowing a decision making process and how can you continue to get better at being a critical thinker?