Teacher Resources

Bring Decision Education into Your Classroom

Resources for educators and students

The Alliance—in collaboration with other organizations, educators, and decision-science experts—is working to provide support and resources for educators, schools, districts and a variety of organizations across the country to support the implementation of Decision Education for youth everywhere.

We believe Decision Education should be a part of every student’s learning experience—to give them the skills and dispositions to determine for themselves what is true and what to do in all aspects of their lives.

Resources for the Four Domains of DE are organized by grade level, with additional materials created just for teachers.

Elementary School

Resources to develop the dispositions for strong decision-making in our youngest learners.

Lessons created by teachers, for teachers, to help you bring key, age-appropriate concepts into your classrooms with videos, interactives, engaging activities.

  • Thinking Through Risks and Rewards

    Thinking Probabilistically

    Grade Level: 1st-5th

    Suggested Timing: 40-60 minutes

  • Skill and Chance in Decision-Making

    Thinking Probabilistically

    Grade Level: 3rd-5th

    Suggested Timing: 30-40 minutes

  • Seeing Problems as Opportunities

    Valuing and Applying Rationality

    Grade Level: 3rd-5th

    Suggested Timing: 45 minutes

  • Thinking, Feeling, and Daydreaming

    Valuing and Applying Rationality

    Grade Level: K-3rd

    Suggested Timing: 30-45 minutes throughout the school day

Middle School

Resources to teach important skills and concepts for strong decision-making in early adolescence.

Browse a series of materials aimed at deepening your students’ understanding of how to navigate, manage, and embrace improved decision-making—all created by teachers, for teachers.

  • Breaking Down Base Rates

    Thinking Probabilistically

    Grade Level: 6th-8th

    Lesson Length: 55-65 minutes

  • Adolescents and Day-to-Day Decision-Making

    Valuing and Applying Rationality

    Grade Level: 6th-8th

    Suggested Timing: 45-60 minutes

  • Policy Decisions: Cell Phone Use at School Unit Plan

    Structuring Decisions

    Grade Level: 7th-12th

    Unit Length: 7 Lessons 

  • Habitwise Unit Plan

    Valuing and Applying Rationality

    Grade Level: 6th-12th

    Unit Length: 5 Lessons | 5 weeks

     

High School

Resources to deepen students’ understanding and apply concepts of strong decision-making throughout high school.

Unit and lesson plans created by teachers to infuse decision-making skills into existing curriculum to build competency, confidence, and agency.

  • Analyzing High Impact Decisions within Historical Fiction

    Structuring Decisions

    Grade Level: 9th-12th

    Unit Length: 5 Lessons | Content Area: English/Literature

  • Decision-Making During the Cuban Missile Crisis

    Valuing and Applying Rationality

    Grade Level: 11-12th

    Suggested Timing: 60-75 minutes

  • Personal Goals and Healthy Habits

    Valuing and Applying Rationality

    Grade Level: 9th-10th

    Suggested Timing: 30-50 minutes

  • Policy Decisions: Cell Phone Use at School Unit Plan

    Structuring Decisions

    Grade Level: 7th-12th

    Unit Length: 7 Lessons 

  • Habitwise Unit Plan

    Valuing and Applying Rationality

    Grade Level: 6th-12th

    Unit Length: 5 Lessons | 5 weeks

     

Teacher Tips and Resources

Resources to support pedagogy and classroom practices that foster strong decision-making.

Quick access to Decision Education Standards, as well as fact sheets, and videos, all created by teachers, for teachers.

  • For Teachers: Understanding Base Rates

    Thinking Probabilistically

    What is a base rate?

    A base rate is a number, usually a percentage, that represents the prevalence of a characteristic in a population. It gives you information on how frequent or likely an event might be.

  • The Four Domains of Decision Education

    Thinking Probabilistically

    Our Four Domains build skills from grades K-12, enabling students to form more accurate judgments and make more skilful decisions—on their own or as part of a group, both today and for the rest of their lives.

  • Decision Education K-12 Learning Standards

    Thinking Probabilistically

    Over the past decade, there has been a significant, and ever-expanding national movement to raise awareness about the importance of explicitly teaching decision-making skills in schools. We (Alliance for Decision Education) are proud to publish the first edition of the Decision Education K-12 Learning Standards. Written by educators and researchers, they represent the movement’s first best effort to provide a framework for what K-12 students should know and be able to do, with respect to learning how to be effective decision makers.

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