02 Feb After reading the Dilemma of a Divided City, which two options would you believe are most beneficial to help the Eastern side? of the city? Furthermore, what would be

Module 3: The Basics of Decision-Making: The Conceptual, Relational, Valuation, Decision, and Reflective Phases of Learning

This module provides the reader with a basic overview of the decision-making process. When decisions occur daily within the social studies classroom, the four stages of thinking are relevant and commonly found when students are asked to think and solve dilemmas or situations. This new approach, content-centered learning, relied heavily on student decision-making as the critical element. Unlike many new social studies projects that were standalone curricula, this method was supplemental and designed to be added to the existing curriculum. This module will describe such phases and provide examples.

Module Notes

Four steps or phases occur when we witness students working through a problem, issue, or situation. The first stage is known as the Conceptual Phase of Thinking . Students focus on clarifying, comprehending, and interpreting the information provided in this stage. The second phase is referred to as the Relational Thinking Phase . Students begin to link information found in the situation and the unit or information studied in class in this stage. The third phase, the Moral Reasoning Phase , begins to personalize the event and explore possible variables and solutions to the dilemma(s). Finally, the Moral Reflective Phase is the fourth step in the decision-making process. Consider all the elements presented to solve or justify an issue here. Finally, students reach a decision and commit to the course of action.

Below are more detailed explanations of the different thinking and decision-making phases (or steps). I will use a content-centered lesson on the Berlin Wall to provide examples of each level. After each phase is discussed, I will illustrate the characteristics associated with each stage.

PLEASE READ THIS FIRST

The Dilemma of a Divided City-Rank Order

Directions: Read the following short paragraphs individually or in small groups. Then, as the mayor of a large urban city, you must decide the best method of resolving the dilemma found below. Then, you may write on this paper.

Date: Tuesday, 8 August 1961

Situation: Perched on the twelfth floor of the city administration building, you look out onto a dirty, economically stressed city. As the mayor of a city of 1,000,000 residents, you have been tasked to push economic life back into a once proud, vibrant cultural center. However, this will not be an easy task. For the past sixteen years, your city has been divided down the middle, both politically and economically. The town's other (West) side has 1,200,000 residents and is not considered a part of your country. Businesses flourish on the city's west side, and the arts and social events contribute to a high quality of life and salaries. In your town (the East side), government control, regulation, and limited growth have stalled any chance of an economic recovery. While you wish to engage in limited reforms, your country remains firmly in control. The national government has strict regulations on most production, healthcare, media, and education. Free enterprise is discouraged.

Over the years, government officials have indicated a growing alarm about this economic situation. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 of your city’s highly skilled residents cross the invisible border daily to work on the Western side of the town. In your eyes, this means lost revenue in taxes. Also, your citizens, who travel daily to the other side of the city, still use your country’s free healthcare and education system, which costs your city around one billion dollars a year. As a result, your city and country lose significant amounts of skilled labor (technicians, doctors, teachers, etc.), creating a shortage of critical jobs. Your government has estimated that nearly 1.6 million citizens have only walked across the street into the city's Westside over the last ten years, never to return.

Local members of your city government have indicated that desperate times result in drastic measures. As a result, you are under much pressure to solve this “bleeding economic” issue. As you meet with government officials, you review the facts:

· Your city/country cannot compete on the same economic scale as the city's western sector.

· Your country has strict regulations on the production and distribution of goods, which is different from the Western area of the town. Such a contrast has caused enormous problems for your citizens and the government.

· Many of your city’s citizens receive higher salaries on the Western side of the town.

· Workers leave daily to work on the other side of the town and never return.

· Your healthcare, education, and social programs are on the verge of bankruptcy due to the loss of tax revenue.

· Your country has experienced recent food shortages and failed crops and harvests.

· You currently have a high rate of unemployment and a lack of skilled labor on your side of the city.

· A citizen on your side of the city can make up to 3 times the salary on the Western side.

· You currently spend roughly one billion dollars a year on healthcare and education for citizens who work in other cities but live in your country.

· Your government is UNWILLING to change its controlled economy to that of the Western side of the town.

Your government has made several possible solutions to this economic crisis as you review the facts. You are responsible for evaluating each and determining the potential strengths and weaknesses.

Option A: Your government attempts to change the shared currency with the city's Westside to create a “foreign country” effect. You are an economically powerful neighbor making Western “goods” expensive.

Option B: Make deep economic cuts in several nationwide national (government-supported) programs. Monies saved from such financial cuts will be given to your city to build parks, schools, and entertainment to attract citizens.

Option C: Document and carefully monitor all citizens leaving to work and shop on the city's Western side. Additional taxes and fees will offset your country’s free healthcare, education, and affordable housing.

Option D: Individuals in your town who work on the Westside will not receive special consideration for preferred apartments and going to college.

Option E: Only allow dedicated and loyal citizens to study at the university level. Such loyalty to your government’s beliefs will aid in keeping highly skilled workers in your country.

Option F: Build a more significant police force in your city to “protect” your citizens from leaving your town and losing needed income.

Option G: Build a series of fences along the invisible border. Doing so will stop your citizens from leaving your city, losing demanding jobs, and stabilizing your money.

The Moral Reasoning Approach:

Lawrence Kohlberg has suggested that moral judgments are the product of sound decision-making processes and that these processes are linked to logical reasoning processes. Thus, students who use decision-making processes that incorporate rational reasoning processes are more likely to become more ‘mature’ in their moral reasoning than students who make decisions without logical reasoning processes. Moral reasoning is a form of logical, critical, and rational, reflective thinking processes. This decision-making approach suggests that moral reasoning involves using moral criteria, and this standard distinguishes moral reasoning processes from new or moral reasoning processes.

Moral decisions or judgments are those important statements a student makes or arrives at, indicating that a decision has been reached or made. Such decisions often use such terms or phrases as “ought to,” “must,” “have to,” “will,” and “should.” Such decisions imply that the deliberative phase of the decision-making process has ended and the course of action has been decided or agreed upon. However, it is essential to remember that a decision or judgment is also made whenever a student selects a:

a) The criterion that is the most important or is to be the one used as a basis for another choice;

b) Consequence(s) that is to be assured or protected or is to be avoided;

c) The course of action or policy that is to be followed, advocated, or pursued;

d) Rank or rating that is to be assigned to a given entity, action, or behavior;

e) Facts that are to be examined and accepted;

f) The problem that is to be confronted, resolved, or avoided;

g) The emotion that is to be encouraged or is considered appropriate and

h) The perspective examines a problem or deals with a situation where a decision is needed or appropriate.

All of these behaviors are forms of judgment. They become moral judgments only when the problem, the content considered, and the possible solution are related to moral issues, criteria, or substance. Moral decisions or judgments are the results of moral reasoning. Moral reasoning is the process one employs in reaching a moral judgment.

Four Phases of Moral Reasoning

Moral reasoning is best defined as consisting of a four-phase strategy. In other words, if one wants to engage students in activities designed to assist students in engaging in moral reasoning episodes by which they can develop more ‘mature’ levels of moral reasoning and/or create more ‘refined’ moral reasoning skills, then they should guide students through the entire moral reasoning strategy described in this model. On the other hand, should one only wish to engage students in moral reasoning behaviors, then the only one phase of the model is appropriate, i.e., phase three, for this objective? On the other hand, should one want to assist students in engaging in moral reasoning to understand how students are to employ moral reasoning skills and make moral judgments, then phases one through three are required in moral dilemmas students are to respond to within the classroom? The model then allows the teacher to convert whatever his/her objective is into at least one phase of the four-part moral reasoning strategy.

The development or refinement of moral reasoning consists of four phases. These four phases are (1) The Conceptual Phase, (2) the Relational Phase, (3) the Moral Reasoning Phase, and (4) the Moral Reflective Phase. Each of these four phases is to be described briefly below. While these phases are presented in sequence, students may move among the first three phases as necessary within the ongoing discussion during actual classroom episodes. Phase four is only possible after the first three phases have been completed.

The Conceptual Phase: When moral issues or problems are examined, and decisions are considered, moralization is focused. This focus may be a personal situation or dilemma (e.g., deciding whether or not to steal, cheat, or lie), a social situation (e.g., deciding whether or not to support prison reform or the food stamp program), an environmental-related situation (e.g., deciding whether or not to continue to use aerosol spray cans despite potential damage to future generations); or a combination of personal, social, and environmentally- related situations. At the same time, the focus of moralization may involve a legal issue (e.g., the pardoning of Richard Nixon in the name of ‘justice’), a problem-solving situation (e.g., deciding whether a movie or book deserves to be censored); or, a situation where scientific knowledge may be used (or misused) to cope with a given problem (e.g., keeping a person alive via artificial life support systems). In other cases, the focus of moralization may be a deliberately contrived situation whereby a moral dilemma is created, forcing students to simultaneously consider some possible conflicting moral-related issues, criteria, and perspectives. Suppose such conditions, problems, or dilemmas are accurately assessed, objectively examined, and considered according to their moral perspective. In that case, the focus of moralization must be comprehended.

During the Conceptual Phase, students use patterns of descriptive language to denote the level of their understanding (i.e., conceptualization) of the situation, problem, or dilemma, serving as the focus of moralization. They identify the exact nature of the problem or dilemma. They recognize the specific moral-related issues and the moral substance involved in the problem or dilemma. They demonstrate their understanding of the situation or problem regarding the available data. They retrieve and collect relevant data not immediately provided in the given case. They describe their conceptual understanding of related terminology (e.g., honesty, justice, right, and truth). They take time to explain relevant information. When combined, statements such as these provide oral evidence that students' focus on moralization has been comprehended and understood. Reports like those provide the teacher with data suggesting students have embraced and conceptualized their examination center. They are to engage in moral reasoning towards making moral judgments.

Based on the scenario provided above, the following points might be considered but not limited to during the conceptual phases of thinking:

· Your city/country cannot compete on the same economic scale as the city's western sector.

· Unlike the city's western sector, your country has strict regulations on producing and distributing goods. Such a contrast has caused enormous problems for your citizens and the government.

· Many of your city’s citizens receive higher salaries on the Western side of the town.

· Workers leave daily to work on the other side of the city and never return.

· Your healthcare, education, and social programs are on the verge of bankruptcy due to the loss of tax revenue.

· Your country has experienced recent food shortages and failed crops and harvests.

· You currently have a high rate of unemployment and a lack of skilled labor on your side of the city.

· A citizen on your side of the city can make up to 3 times the salary on the Western side.

· You currently spend roughly one billion dollars a year on healthcare and education for citizens who work in other cities but live in your country.

· Your government is UNWILLING to change its controlled economy to that of the city's Western side.

The Relational Phase: Being content-oriented, this approach integrates the processes

moral reasoning and moral decision-making with the subject matter being studied through the Relational Phase. This phase focuses on ways the classroom teacher may assist students in making moral decisions within the context and content provided by the subject matter being studied. Students make moral judgments while simultaneously comprehending and applying the subject matter content studied in their ongoing instruction unit. Failure to integrate moral reasoning processes and content-oriented learnings may suggest to students that there is no relationship between school-related subject matter content and moral issues and understandings they consider and the moral judgments they make outside –and within—the classroom environment.

Students connect the focus of moralization during the Relational Phase they have conceptualized to the concepts, ideas, and understandings they have learned. First, students explain how the context of the problem or dilemma relates to the focus of their ongoing instruction unit. Second, they identify and tell how components of a problem or situation are connected or related. Students identify, interpret, and clarify relationships between and within features included in the problem situation they are considering. Third, they explain how the information presented in the problem situation relates to other previously learned data. They tell why data and explanations are relevant or irrelevant to the studied problem. Fourth, they identify and examine the consistency or inconsistency of relationships existing within a given issue or expressed by other participants. They justify relationships that have been identified or established. Finally, they explain moral terms (e.g., truth, justice, right, etc.) to aspects of an ethical problem or dilemma. Integrating moral reasoning with subject matter content ensures a more significant conceptualization of the issues or problems examined within the moral-oriented episode. Also, it assists students in understanding the relevance (relatedness) of the right situation being studied to content previously studied or being studied within the classroom.

In this case, the class studied events contributing to and leading up to the Cold War, emphasizing how the nation coped with different events abroad. The lesson (whole group instruction with guided notes) was given with this activity. Then, as a formative assessment, students were asked to analyze a fictional situation (actually aligned with historically accurate accounts) of East and West Berlin. Such activity allows students to interpret and apply competing solutions to East Berlin’s dilemma.

The Moral Reasoning Phase: When students engage in moral reasoning, they employ moral criterion in considering and selecting which consequences they desire to be attained or protected, which criterion are to be used and how such criterion is to be used, and which policy will be, ought to be, or must be followed, which situations are moral ones, and whether or not a particular course of action can, should, must, will, or ought to be carried out. They often designate behaviors or activities as moral, immoral, just, truthful, or right. Students assign correct labels to actions or decisions and often consider them regarding degrees (e.g., more just, less just, unjust, etc.). In other words, students rate these behaviors or decisions along a continuum, which allows them to compare and contrast similar or related actions or decisions in light of the same criterion. Hence, the moral criterion may be assigned different levels of importance according to the level of moral reasoning involved in the assignment and the individual’s preference for a specific moral criterion in a given situation. Choices of policies and the moral criterion used to select such policies result from individual preferences within a particular moral situation. Consequences of decisions, policies, of suggested courses of action are examined on their moral basis. Students may react emotively to, in, and as part of ethical dilemma situations. Ideally, students empathize with individuals who are or may be affected by judgments based on moral criteria.

Students use moral criteria during the Moral Reasoning Phase to make decisions or judgments. They consider possible or known consequences of the moral sense and discuss whether these consequences are righteous. They consider ethical criteria and potential applications of such criteria. They recognize which moral criteria are appropriate and which should be used in a given situation or dilemma. They identify and select which choices that choose which is the most moral. They justify previous decisions or behaviors on moral grounds. They express their preferences for different ethical criteria and policies consistent with these criteria. They identify their passionate feelings. They demonstrate their awareness of their emotions and the situation they face and are affected by a moral problem. They justify and explain their selection of ethical criteria, moral judgments, and level of empathy within the given situation being examined. When students express statements such as those just described, the teacher has ample data to infer that students are actively engaged in moral reasoning processes. When used in combination, the teacher has evidence that students acquire and employ excellent decision-making skills.

Based on the scenario provided above, the following points might be considered but not limited to during the valuation phases of thought:

Option A: Your government attempts to change the shared currency with the city's Westside to create a “foreign country” effect. You are an economically powerful neighbor making Western “goods” expensive.

Option B: Make deep economic cuts in several nationwide national (government-supported) programs. Monies saved from such financial cuts will be given to your city to build parks, schools, and entertainment to attract citizens.

Option C: Document and carefully monitor all citizens leaving to work and shop on the city's Western side. Additional taxes and fees will offset your country’s free healthcare, education, and affordable housing.

Option D: Individuals in your town who work on the Westside will not receive special consideration for preferred apartments and going to college.

Option E: Only allow dedicated and loyal citizens to study at the university level. Such loyalty to your government’s beliefs will aid in keeping highly skilled workers in your country.

Option F: Build a more significant police force in your city to “protect” your citizens from leaving your town and losing needed income.

Option G: Build a series of fences along the invisible border. Doing so will stop your citizens from leaving your city, losing demanding jobs, and stabilizing your money.

The Moral Reflective Phase: To ensure that moral reasoning is not replaced

through the moral realization (i.e., using a moral criterion as the basis for a decision as contrasted with only considering ethical principles to defend or justify a decision based initially on the non-moral ground), the teacher must provide students with the opportunity to contemplate and review their use of moral criteria and their moral judgments. Suppose one of the more valued goals of moral education is to help students develop ‘mature’ ethical principles and assist students in employing these inconsistent criteria ways. In that case, students must take part in the cognitive consideration of the requirements they apply and how they use such measures. Unless provisions are made to guarantee that students reflect upon the consistency of their use of moral criteria or moral judgments, it is doubtful that moral character will develop independently. For those who value the ‘stage plus one’ approach to developing moral reasoning, this phase provides the basis by which students can contemplate their use of setting and stage plus one level of moral sense in determining the adequacy of each within several similar ethical situations.

The Moral Reflective Phase is designed to enable students to examine the consistency of how they used moral criteria and how they made moral judgments. In addition, because they now have personal data upon which they can reflect, they can now study the usefulness and adequacy of their ethical criteria and moral reasoning skills. The data used during this phase is taken from previous activities incorporating stages one through three, which the students have already completed.

Once students have completed at least three moral dilemmas containing the first three phases related to the same instructional focus, they are ready to be in the Moral Reflective Phase of moral reasoning. During this phase, students study how they:

a) determined whether or not a problem or dilemma was a moral one;

b) determined which moral criterion was appropriate within each ethical situation;

c) determined which moral standard was to be used in confronting a moral problem or in resolving a problem situation;

d) considered available choices and possible consequences of these choices in light of identified ethical criteria;

e) reasoned through the use of standards, alternatives, and outcomes in arriving at their moral judgments;

f) justified their decisions and recommendations on various moral grounds;

g) empathized with other individuals described within the context of the different ethical dilemmas;

h) collected and assessed data relevant to the moral dilemmas or their ultimate moral judgments; and,

i) employed and maintained consistent use of moral criteria over related ethical dilemmas.

Every moral dilemma contains at least three elements. First, there is a social and ethical context. This element presents the focus or moralization by providing or establishing the framework for students responding. Second, this context may merely describe a situation or problem-related to a moral issue or a moral condition that has occurred or may occur. Finally, this context may explain a contrived situation and may place students in roles, and in a case, they respond.

Secondly, there is a moral dilemma. This element is that specific section of the social and ethical context that presents the individual described in the background or the students with a problem that requires a choice between two or more moral criteria or positions conflict when the student is aware of this conflict. Until the student is aware of the conflict, i.e., the student conceptualizes the conflict and the nature of the moral dilemma in the given situation, an ethical dilemma has only been described but has not been achieved. An awareness of this conflict is only the first phase of this element of the moral dilemma. The second phase is the requirement that the student (as an individual or as an individual in the social and ethical context being examined) decide based upon a personal choice between the different moral criteria or positions identified. Thus, students either study or are confronted by a situation that demands that they judge based on some moral grounds. Their decisions are either for themselves or for some individuals whose role they have taken.

Thirdly, there is a set of follow-up questions in the form of discussion starters. These discussion starters provide the teacher with the types of items that can be used to guide students toward an adequate understanding of the focus of moralization (the moral inquiry activity) and towards relating the context being studied to the content of the unit currently being taught, towards an understanding of the ethical issues involved in the background and to the moral criteria and positions presented in response to the context. Towards the ways moral judgments were made and justified. Although prepared in advance, these questions cannot be rigidly adhered to or followed in the sequence listed. To be effective, the teacher should employ items similar to those provided in the sample materials when appropriate to the context of the discussion.

“The Decision Phase Triangle”

RELEVANT

ALTERNATIVES

FINAL DECISION

(Individual or Group Choice)

CONSEQUENCES REASONS

(possible, probable, known, actual (standards, motives, causes

Short/long-term effects or results) laws or values)

Based on the scenario provided above, the following points might be considered but not limited to during the decision phases of thinking:

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Assigned Rank of Most Acceptable Response or Action Taken Example: 1, 2, 3, etc.	Type of Option Given	Potential Positive Factor(s) of Response or Action	Possible Negative Factor(s) of Response or Action
	A: Change of Currency