It is estimated that teachers make about 1,500 decisions during the school day. That is a lot of thinking and decision making in a short amount of time! If you are a teacher, you know how we have to think quickly as different situations constantly arise during the school day.
If we make that many decisions during one school day, how many decisions do our students have to make?
Luckily, we are adults and trained professionals capable of making good choices using effective decision-making skills that we have acquired over time. But are our students just as capable as we are? Decision making is a skill that our students need direct instruction on and plenty of practice, too.
The following three decision-making strategies are easy to implement in your classroom and will yield positive results for your students and they pair especially well with growth mindset classrooms.
If we make that many decisions during one school day, how many decisions do our students have to make?
Luckily, we are adults and trained professionals capable of making good choices using effective decision-making skills that we have acquired over time. But are our students just as capable as we are? Decision making is a skill that our students need direct instruction on and plenty of practice, too.
The following three decision-making strategies are easy to implement in your classroom and will yield positive results for your students and they pair especially well with growth mindset classrooms.
Daily Practice: Planned and Authentic
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Have a “How To” Make Good Decisions Checklist

Display a simple and easy to follow “how to” checklist to help students make good decisions. This checklist can be strategies that you brainstorm with your students, or it can be strategies that you give to them and expect them to use. Either way, create an anchor chart and display it in your classroom as a visual reminder of how to make good choices. Then make individual copies for students to have for reference. Be sure to send home the language you will be using in the classroom so that parents can reinforce the same expectations at home.
Practice Decision Making While Reading-Connecting with Characters
There is no better way to help students understand and see decision making in action then through reading books and analyzing characters! Character analysis and understanding character traits is something that is taught and practiced in every classroom, at every grade level. It is very easy to weave decision making discussions into these lessons and any book that you read together as a class. Analyze both the good and the bad decision making that you come across in books as both serve as a teaching and learning point, sparking meaningful discourse in your classroom. Invite students to share decisions that the characters in their independent reading chapter books make with the class and vote on whether or not the students would make that same decision as the character.
One book that is a great read aloud to kick off learning about making decisions in your classroom is the book, What Should Danny Do? written by Ganit and Adir Levy. Not only will your students love this book, but you will, too! With its “choose your own adventure” style format, it is many stories in one book. Within this interactive book, the main character Danny faces many different situations that require him to make a choice. The students decide what choice Danny will make, taking them to a page that continues that story. You can reread this book over and over, having Danny make different decisions, changing the outcome of the story. What I love about this book, is that it is a true example of how making different choices can change the outcome. The decisions that Danny has to make are relatable to students, so that they will be able to easily put themselves in Danny’s shoes.

Other books with strong main characters that lend themselves to discussions about making decisions and good choices are:
- Enemy Pie written by Derek Munson
- The Other Side written by Jacqueline Woodson
- Weslandia written by Paul Fleischman
Making decisions is a process that must be learned. The process is hard work, especially for our students. Empower your students to be able to make decisions and good choices with easy to use strategies, provide them with opportunities to try out those strategies in the classroom and encourage them to connect with the amazing characters that they meet in books to analyze the decisions that the characters make.
How do you encourage good decision making in your classroom?
Looking for ways to encourage your students to make positive decision for their own actions? Check out these positive phrase posters to display in your classroom!
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