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Making decisions and processing information |
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After using some of the brainstorming exercises to outline all the issues related to the problem that you have identified and whether you have used the concept map or not, you will have a list of priorities. As it says in the rules of the brainstorm, you have to decide which are the best ideas. Prioritizing is a very useful skill (and one that is especially helpful to a busy distance education student:- I
also learn things from other teachers. Talking about new ideas and
strategies can be helpful but it takes time, something I never seem
to have enough of. How does one learn from others and still manage
to have a life?
Bill Barnes
Very often we are overwhelmed by all the things we have to do. We may have to collect our spouse from work, get the supper ready, bath the children, prepare lessons for the next day, mark tests, do shopping, attend a parents meeting, visit a sickly neighbour and then submit an assignment. You can easily get flustered but if you calmly list all these items in order of priority then you can make time to do them. You can decide what can be done later in the day or the evening or the week or later in the month. Getting back to decision making, once you have outlined the possibilities it is then time to consider which of the solutions will work. You may have already started to solve your problem by discussing it with your colleagues or learners and debating some of the issues together Decision-making We are often faced with choices and need to make decisions, weighing up several factors. We have to compare several options. This is decision making. At other times we need to analyse the differences and similarities between things in order to help our thinking. Comparisons are therefore also the tools of analysis. A useful tool for making complex decisions is a grid that helps us to compare several things according to several factors. For instance, assume that you want to buy a bicycle. You need it for muddy roads, but you do not have a lot of money. You do not want a heavy bike because your area is hilly, but you do want a fast bike. You would place your criteria in a grid as follows:
You then weigh up your options. There are 3 bicycles to choose from. The Mountain bike, the Racer and the Bomber. Enter these into your grid as follows and then review the criteria for each bicycle, placing a tick if the bicycle fulfils the criteria and a cross if it does not :
This is also a visual way of summing up the similarities and differences between the three bicycles. |
