Student Contributor: S. Peterson
The Dice Decision Making tool gives students an opportunity to make decisions in a short amount of time. It eliminates the conflict of group decision making if an answer or idea is unable to be agreed upon.
The Decision Dice would be included in a community supplies station at each table group. The dice could be used to roll to see what number at the table must go get supplies when each student is assigned a group number. The dice can also be used for deciding when the group cannot agree on. For example if the group cannot decide whether to do their project topic on the study of ostriches or the study of panda. They could roll the dice and say odds means ostriches and evens mean pandas. It allows them to decide when they cannot come to a clear agreement. This tool would work for 3-5th grade the best. I believe this is a great strategy to help students decide.
The phase that relates the most to the Decision Dice is the Supportive Phase because it allows students to make decisions for themselves. The dice support the students by allowing them to make a decision faster and have more time to work. It also allows student freedom to not have to be dependent on getting the teacher's opinion on what they should do for a task. This also helps the teacher not have to take time to argue back and forth with students and gives them a solution to solve the issue themselves. This supports student-centered theory because the students are in charge of making their own decision and only need to involve the teacher if it is absolutely necessary.
More Information –
Tool Source: Idea from Gus Nollmeyer
Supportive: Decision Die:
4th grade
26 students
Suburban
To prepare for this tool I had to get 5 die which is a die for each group in the classroom. I then placed the die into each group’s supply bin in the center of the desk. I also labeled each student a number 1-6 and wrote it on there name tags so they would remember. After briefly explaining to students how the decision die work I started to incorporate it throughout the lesson. This was very easy to teach and use because it applied to our everyday lives in the classroom and decisions were made more efficiently. This tool was extremely successful because there was less conflict between group members on who was doing what. It gave every student a fair chance to participate and students understood that it was fair by visually seeing the dice. I also use the numbers for students partnering with different groups. I would say find the same number partner for a different group or find a different number partner from another group. One adjustment I would make is getting a dice that also works as a fidget. Meaning it was a squishy. This is another supportive tool that can be used for students who need a fidget to help them succeed and is accessible for them.