Lesson Plan

Using Values to Create Options

  • Habits That Help
  • The Value-Focused Mind

Students will:

  • Practice identifying what’s important to them about a decision
  • Think creatively to generate options

Decisions are best made by thinking about what’s important to you, and the more we practice using our values to guide decision making, the better decisions we will make.

  • Science / Social Studies: Once students are comfortable with how to use values in decision making, challenge students to apply this framework to addressing curricular questions from Social Studies or Science
  • Health and Career: Consider incorporating values-based decision making when teaching about digital citizenship, drugs and substance use, healthy relationships, etc.
  • List of suggested topics for decisions found here
  • Optional: chart paper/ whiteboards to record thinking

DECISION MAKER MOVES: Thinking beyond the pros & cons list

Lesson Background

Your personal values are the things that really matter to you – the things you believe are fundamentally important in how you live. We have curated a list of ways to help your students think about their personal values here.

Your choices should be guided by your values. This exercise is designed to give students practice using their values to generate a range of creative options. (It doesn’t include evaluating trade-offs or choosing among the options.)

This lesson takes 20-30 minutes, but can be repeated with different decision questions for continued practice.

Lesson Framework

State the decision clearly

Try to avoid framing it as ‘whether or not’ to do something. Frame the decision as an open
ended question.

Identify what matters for this decision

Start by taking a few minutes to reflect on your values (try out some of our suggested values activities in advance!) and identify the ones you think are most relevant for this decision. Try to re-state broad values in a way that’s more specific to this decision – what matters to you in this decision?

Generate options

For each of the things that matter, write down some things you could do to address or support it; these become your options for this decision. You might find you can think of options that address two or more of the things that matter at the same time, and that’s fine; be sure to also consider each thing that matters individually – you’ll get more options that way!

Check if you’ve thought of more things that matter

Sometimes generating options makes you think of more things that are important to you and you want to consider. If so, add them to your list and take some time to consider options for addressing these new things that matter.

Get creative

Can you think of new and better ideas by combining options you’ve already generated? How can you tweak the options you’ve already thought of so they address more of the things that matter?

Reflect

Consider the questions below to guide your reflection:

  • Did thinking about your values help you come up with more options?
  • Are some options good for some values, but not for others?
  • Do you think it will be easy or difficult to choose a best option? Why?

Differentiation:

  • This framework can be used individually, as a group, or in partners.
  • Students may benefit from practicing the framework together at first, then using it independently.

Optional extensions:

Success Criteria:

  • Students will demonstrate understanding of the link between their values and the options they generate.
  • Students will use creative thinking to generate a broad range of options.

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