Students create graphs comparing the stock market crashes and recoveries from 1929 and 2008. Students analyze the graphs to make conclusions about the risks and benefits of stock investment. Students use the decision making dimensions and their analysis of the data to decide on an investment strategy for the future. This lesson plan was created by a participant of the 2020-21 Decision Education Fellowship, hosted by the Alliance for Decision Education.

In this Animating Civic Action lesson, from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Washington State Governor's Office of the Education Ombuds, students listen to the story of Jared, a student experiencing homelessness. Students are asked to examine what it means to be homeless, to identify how homelessness affects people and to and to consider ways they can act to take action against homelessness in their school community.

In this Animating Civic Action lesson, from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, students listen to the story of Esther, a student refugee, about her experience in school. Students are asked to examine what it means to stereotype others, and to consider ways they can act to make their community more welcoming and inclusive.  

In this Animating Civic Action lesson, from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Washington State Governor's Office of the Education Ombuds, students listen to the story of Jared, a student experiencing homelessness. Students are asked to examine what it means to be homeless, to identify how homelessness affects people and to and to consider ways they can act to take action against homeless n their school community.

Often throughout American history former refugees rise to be community leaders dedicating their lives to helping others. Refugees often overcome key obstacles including language and culture to become important activists addressing social and political problems. Refugees offer key perspectives on the application of civic virtues and human rights. In this lesson students will hear from three refugee students about their experiences. Then, students will be asked to:Identify and describe obstacles student refugees encounter while assimilating at school.Identify reasons why refugees go on to develop a strong sense of civic duty and desire to give back to their communities. Research and identify ways they can take civic action to build a better community.

Students will build empathy to be “helpers” and make a difference in the lives of others through consideration of two questions: How can we listen effectively to better understand people’s stories, and how can we respond to and communicate effectively to peoples’ stories? Students will then propose opportunities to take action to improve our community response to support all students and their communities.

In this Animating Civic Action lesson, from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Washington State Governor's Office of the Education Ombuds, students listen to the story of Jared, a student experiencing homelessness. Students are asked to examine what it means to be homeless, to identify how homelessness affects people and to and to consider ways they can act to take action against homelessness in their school community.

ACTIVITY OBJECTIVE: A great decision-making activity for kids that will also build their thinking and reasoning skills. 

The fact of scarcity forces individuals, firms, and societies to choose among alternative uses – or allocations – of its limited resources. Accordingly, the first part of this summer course seeks to understand how economists model the choice process of individual consumers and firms, and how markets work to coordinate these choices. It also examines how well markets perform this function using the economist's criterion of market efficiency.
Overall, this course focuses on microeconomics, with some topics from macroeconomics and international trade. It emphasizes the integration of theory, data, and judgment in the analysis of corporate decisions and public policy, and in the assessment of changing U.S. and international business environments.

Short Description:
Every applied ethics course requires some brief introduction, survey, or primer on ethical theory and moral decision-making. At the same time, spending too much time on argumentation and normative ethical theory can take precious course time away from the applied issues that are the focus of the course. This Applied Ethics Primer offers a concise introduction to both basic argumentation and normative ethical theory. The concepts discussed reflect the ethical theories that currently ground most professional ethics codes and debates in applied ethics. Somewhat more inclusive than many similar resources, this primer offers students a taste of the truly global history of ethics, while still being squarely focussed on providing practical tools for ethical decision-making. It is appropriate for any introductory applied ethics course.

Long Description:
Every applied ethics course requires some brief introduction to ethical theory and philosophical reasoning. Without this, applied ethics courses risk merely teaching students how to rationalize their prejudices and preferences rather than teaching them how to critically assess and engage in ethical decision-making. At the same time, spending too much time on normative ethical theory can take precious course time away from the applied issues that are the focus of the course.

The Applied Ethics Primer offers a concise intoduction to both basic argumentation and normative ethics that can be integrated into any applied ethics course. The primer provides the basic conceptual tools needed to analyze ethical positions, identify ethical problems, and assess arguments, all without assuming any prior knowledge of ethics or argumentation theory. The concepts discussed reflect the normative concepts that ground most professional ethics codes and debates in applied ethics. At the same time, the content is global, drawing on ethical theories and practices from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Indigenous traditions of North America, as well as feminist theory.

Part I introduces the ethical question—what should I do?—and how to address it. The first chapter alerts readers to the role of emotions in moral responses and the importance of reflection. This grounds a brief discussion of disagreement that leads to the second chapter on reason and argument. Here we introduce argument analysis and offer advice on how to engage in productive debates and the importance of public reasons.

Part II constitutes the main body of the primer—the ethical lenses. The first chapter focuses on consequences, presenting both the ideas of Mozi and act and rule utilitarianism. We then turn to a focus on action, with a discussion of duties based on social role, past action, and reason alone, which draw from a passage in the Bhagavad Gita, the work of W.D. Ross, and Kantian deontology, respectively. The chapter that focuses on character (and virtue) addresses both Aristotle’s eudaimonism and Buddhist ethics, particularly emphasizing the root poisons and the eightfold path. The last main chapter in this part addresses ethical approaches that focus on relations, looking at feminist ideas about personal and political relationships (with a nod to Kongfuzi), before turning to African communal ethics, captured by the concept of ubuntu, and the all my relations and seven generations teachings from the philosophies of the first nations of what settlers call North America. The part on ethical lenses is followed by a brief part that addresses a couple of important ethical ideas that cannot be captured by any given lens. Here we introduce the concept of ahimsa (or non-violence), which reflects all of the lenses equally, and the concept of rights that cannot adequately be captured by any of them.

The final part addresses self-regarding attitudes, such as rational self-interest—which is shown to ground social contract theory—as well as biases like exceptionalism and moral licensing. We end this section with a discussion of helpful heuristics and conclude the primer with an emphasis on the importance of careful reflection and argumentation for ethical decision-making.

The primer has several pedagogical tools, including a set of recommended readings at the end of the chapters that address substantive ethical theories, a set of “Stop and think” reflective excercises throughout the primer, and brief self-quizzes at the end of each chapter. The appendix includes a set of tips for reading philosophy and a critical thinking worksheet. There is also a glossary for key terms. We also provide support for how to cite the primer and how to pronounce some of the unfamiliar terms.

Word Count: 27818

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

This text is a complete team-based and project-based learning course focused on the application of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to unique groups of program clients and patients. It is designed to engage undergraduate students in exploration of the different facets of the ICF, in how the ICF differs from medical and social models because of these facets, and how each applies to, and ensures, an awareness of all of the ways in which health affects and is affected by peoples’ characteristics and environments. The text includes readings, digital links, readiness assurance elements, and guidelines for individual and team deliverables, but can also be used as a stand-alone text to provide a rich constructivist approach to understanding the structure of the ICF and how to use it for problem solving and decision-making with a patient/client population.

It is the author’s intention that the text be used as suits the instructor, and modified to fit the pre-professional or paraprofessional healthcare students being taught, so while case study examples for rehabilitation are include, the text will lend itself to any patient or client group.

While no businesses succeed based on their architecture or space design, many fail as a result of inattention to the power of spatial relationships. This course demonstrates through live case studies with managers and architects the value of strategic space planning and decision making in relation to business needs. The course presents conceptual frameworks for thinking about architecture, communication and organizations.
This course is offered during the Sloan Innovation Period (SIP), which is a one-week period at the MIT Sloan School of Management that occurs midway through each semester.

This lesson explores the similarities between how a human being moves/walks and how a robot moves. This allows students to see the human body as a system, i.e., from the perspective of an engineer. It shows how movement results from (i) decision making, i.e., deciding to walk and move, and (ii) implementing the decision by conveying the decision to the muscle (human) or motor (robot).

Are You Convinced? asks students to demonstrate their argumentative and evaluative writing skills.

There is a quote that has been passed down many years and is most recently accounted to P.T. Barnum, “There is a sucker born every minute.” Are you that sucker? If you were, would you like to be “reborn?” The goal of this book is to help you through that “birthing” process. Critical thinking and standing up for your ideas and making decisions are important in both your personal and professional life. How good are we at making the decision to marry? According to the Centers for Disease Control, there is one divorce in America every 36 seconds. That is nearly 2,400 every day. And professionally, the Wall Street Journal predicts the average person will have 7 careers in their lifetime. Critical thinking skills are crucial.

Students produce original art (visual art, music, drama or poetry) that conveys an anti-bias or social justice message. Students then plan a public showcase of their work.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students evaluate three slogans on climate awareness and advocacy and create their own artistic slogans with four specific types of parallel structure.

SCIENTIST NOTES: The lesson enables students to understand the intrinsic value of slogans in climate and social justice advocacy. Students would also practice how to use artistic slogans to communicate climate change impact to diverse audiences and policymakers in order to inform better decision-making and drive climate action. All materials have been carefully reviewed, and this lesson is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson can be used in all levels of English and art classes.
-Art teachers can use this lesson in any unit and incorporate other art components.
-Students are given voice and choice in this lesson as they learn to manipulate language to achieve different outcomes.
-This lesson can be used as an introduction to climate change and overall climate awareness.
-This lesson can be added to a science lesson evaluating evidence for climate change or a communications or business lesson on marketing.
-This lesson can be used to discuss climate justice in social studies.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Students should have some understanding of basic grammar and parallel structure.
-Students should have an understanding of slogans and their purpose.
-Students should have access to computers or art materials in order to create the final version of their parallel structure slogan.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students’ use of language and vocabulary can be simple or complex in order to fit the needs of the class.
-Teachers can simplify the lesson by focusing on only one or two forms of parallel structure.
-Art teachers can have students design two different visual pieces to go with the same slogan, then compare and contrast the effects of the different artistic elements on the overall message.
-Additional scaffolding for AP English classes can include a discussion on the purposes and effects of each specific form of parallel structure as well as an analysis of parallel structures in literature.
-Teachers can connect the parallel structure skills in this lesson to their current reading material or curriculum. For example, students can identify forms of parallel structure in previously assigned class literature or nonfiction readings.
-Teachers can extend this lesson into various writing activities for students to practice expository, analytical, descriptive, or narrative writing with different forms of parallel structure.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students investigate the effectiveness of visual art in addressing climate change.

SCIENTIST NOTES: Simply put, not everyone is swayed by a scientific expert. Often it takes other means to convey a message to someone. That is why is an integral part of climate change communication. Art, scientifically, has a different impact on our thoughts and decision-making than hearing a lecture from an expert. This lesson explores different climate change art projects and shows their potential to reach audiences. This lesson has passed the scientific review process.

POSITIVES:
-Students learn that art can be used to address issues that are usually just discussed in scientific terms.
-Students learn about a variety of artists whose work deals with climate change.
-Students can begin to visualize ways that they might make art about climate change, which can serve as a subsequent lesson.
-This lesson is interactive and simulates a real-world situation in the art world, requiring a variety of skills.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-This lesson can be paired with or follow a more in-depth discussion of climate change science.
-Students should know how to use Google Slides or a similar type of presentation format.
-Students should have a basic familiarity with rubrics.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Teachers can provide instruction multimodally.
-Teachers can preview vocabulary with ESL students.
-Teachers can follow up with questions to ensure comprehension.
-Teachers can pair students with helpful peers.
-It can be beneficial for developing students’ interpersonal skills if groups were randomized.

If you look at what psychologists consider to be high-level stressors, you'll find a list of about 40 life events. We have no control over many of these events, but for more than half, we do. So much of our stress and success in life depends on the decisions we make. In this short course, your students will learn the economic underpinnings of the need to make decisions, why every decision bears a cost, and how to make informed decisions.

"The Art of the Probable" addresses the history of scientific ideas, in particular the emergence and development of mathematical probability. But it is neither meant to be a history of the exact sciences per se nor an annex to, say, the Course 6 curriculum in probability and statistics. Rather, our objective is to focus on the formal, thematic, and rhetorical features that imaginative literature shares with texts in the history of probability. These shared issues include (but are not limited to): the attempt to quantify or otherwise explain the presence of chance, risk, and contingency in everyday life; the deduction of causes for phenomena that are knowable only in their effects; and, above all, the question of what it means to think and act rationally in an uncertain world.
Our course therefore aims to broaden students' appreciation for and understanding of how literature interacts with – both reflecting upon and contributing to – the scientific understanding of the world. We are just as centrally committed to encouraging students to regard imaginative literature as a unique contribution to knowledge in its own right, and to see literary works of art as objects that demand and richly repay close critical analysis. It is our hope that the course will serve students well if they elect to pursue further work in Literature or other discipline in SHASS, and also enrich or complement their understanding of probability and statistics in other scientific and engineering subjects they elect to take.