1. Decision-Making Models for Studying World History and World Geography
Stephen Day
Director
VCU Center for Economic Education

2. The Economic Decision Making Skill
2015 revisions to the Virginia standards include an emphasis on social studies skills.
In the Econ strand this skill is decision making.

3. New Skills Strand: WG.lh, WHI.1h, WHII.1h
h) using a decision-making model to analyze and explain the incentives for and consequences of a specific choice made;

4. New Skills Strand: WG.lh, WHI.1h, WHII.1h
Decision-making models serve several purposes:
 make decisions for the future;
 better understand the choices people faced in the past; or
 analyze the outcomes of the decisions that people already made.
Decision making involves determining relevant and irrelevant information.

5. New Skills Strand: WG.lh, WHI.1h, WHII.1h
Effective decision-making models:
 compare the expected costs and benefits of alternative choices;
 identify the costs and benefits of specific choices made.

6. New Skills Strand: 1h
SOL Definitions Cost: A cost is what you give up when you decide to do something. Costs are the effort, loss, or sacrifice necessary to achieve or obtain something. 

7. New Skills Strand 1h
SOL Definitions
Benefit: A benefit is what satisfies your wants. Benefits are what is gained when an action is taken or a choice is made. 

8. New Skills Strand: WG.lh, WHI.1h, WHII.1h
SOL Definitions
Incentives - actions or rewards that encourage people to act.
When incentives change, behavior changes in predictable ways.
Consequences – the outcome of an action. Some consequences are unintended!

9. Why is this skill important?
Economic decision making focuses on considering the costs and benefits of a choice BEFORE the decision is made.
This can help our students to think about ALL the possibilities and consequences before they make their choice.
Thinking rationally – making a choice because the benefits outweigh the costs – has life-long benefits.

10. Opportunity Cost
All tools must include an intentional analysis of what is given up when making a choice!

11. Cost – Benefit Decision Grid
Tool used for deciding whether or not an action should be taken by comparing its benefits and costs.
Use when a “Yes or No” decision needs to be made.
Importance of Tool
For Future Decisions – an intentional consideration of less obvious factors that may be important to the outcome
For Past Decisions – provides context for the decision - helping to understand why the action was taken and evaluate whether the best decision was made.

12. Tool #1: Cost – Benefit Analysis Personal Example
Should I attend today’s training?
Costs 
Benefits 

13. Tool #1: Cost – Benefit Analysis
Should I attend today’s training?
Weigh the Costs and Benefits
Costs
Benefits
Did the benefits of my choice outweigh the costs?
What was given up when I made my choice?

14. Tool #1: Cost – Benefit Analysis Content Examples - Practice
WG: Analyze the costs and benefits of ethanol fuel subsidies.
WG: Analyze the costs and benefits of using GDP as a measure of economic development.
WHI: Analyze the benefits and costs of Incan road-building.
WHI: Analyze the benefits and costs of the Macedonian conquest of Persia.
WHII: Analyze the benefits and costs of the Meiji Restoration on Japanese culture.
WHII: Analyze the benefits and costs of the post- WWI mandate system and the creation of Middle Eastern states.

15. Tool #2: PACED Decision-Making Grid Personal Example
Tool necessary when deciding among various alternatives (not…to do or not to do one alternative) by considering the costs and benefits of each alternative against predetermined criteria.

16. PACED How do you decide? Identify the Problem
List Alternatives or choices
State the Criteria – What’s most important?
Evaluate
Decide

17. Tool #2: Decision-Making Models Personal Example
PACED Decision-Making Model Example
Which movie should I go to? (not if I should or not)
Weighted PACED Model
You have to start with something easy to understand that you can go through VERY quickly. I use movies. You can change the movies/criteria/numbers to fit your own preference. How about Independence Day Resurgence, Finding Dory, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – all will be out around June 21. Or Now You See Me 2, Alice Through the Looking Glass, X-Men: Apocalypse,
The grid is there if you want to use something else just switch out the numbers, etc… At the end I stress that this is very simplistic and that you would use a decision grid for making bigger decisions…

18. P: STATE THE PROBLEM
What movie should I go to?

19. A: LIST THE ALTERNATIVES
Problem: What movie should I go to?
Zootopia
Allegiant
Dead Pool

20. C: STATE THE CRITERIA Problem: What movie should I go to? Good Reviews
Hadn’t seen before
Funny
Friend
Zootopia
Allegiant
I stop and ask what is important in deciding what movie THEY want to go and see.. And then I explain that this is my criteria – yours will be different. Friend here means if my friend would go with me to this movie.
Dead Pool

21. 3 3 1 3 1 1 2 3 3 3 3 1 E: EVALUATE THE ALTERNATIVES
Rate On A Scale From 3 (Best) to 1(Worst)
Problem: What movie should I go to?
Hadn’t seen before
Good Reviews
Funny
Friend 3
Zootopia 3 1 3 1 1 2 3
Allegiant
My numbers are different than your numbers. What you think is important in making the decision is different than what I think is important. You can’t grade students on getting the correct numbers… its about the process. Stress that – its’ about the process. 3 3 3 1
Dead Pool

22. 3 = 10 3 1 3 1 3 = 7 1 2 3 3 3 1 = 10 E: EVALUATE THE ALTERNATIVES
ADD UP THE NUMBERS
Problem: What movie should I go to?
Hadn’t seen before
Good Reviews
Funny
Friend 3
= 10
Zootopia 3 1 3 1 3
= 7 1 2
Allegiant 3 3 3 1
= 10
Dead Pool

23. 3 = 10 3 1 3 1 3 = 7 1 2 3 3 3 1 = 10 E: EVALUATE THE ALTERNATIVES
ADD UP THE NUMBERS
What if one criterion is more important than the others?
Problem: What movie should I go to? x2
Hadn’t seen before
Good Reviews
Funny
Friend 3
= 10
Zootopia 3 1 3 1 3
= 7 1 2
Allegiant 3 3 3 1
= 10
Dead Pool

24. What was given up when I made my choice?
E: EVALUATE THE ALTERNATIVES
ADD UP THE NUMBERS
What if one criteria is more important than the others?
Problem: What movie should I go to? x2
Hadn’t seen before
Good Reviews
Funny
Friend ?
What was given up when I made my choice? 3 3
= 11
Zootopia 3 2 1 3
= 9 1 4
Allegiant 3 3 6 1
= 13
Dead Pool

25. Tool #2: PACED Decision Grid Content Examples - Practice
WG: Decide if a rural Brazilian resident should migrate.
WG: In which region of the world would I like to live?
WHI: What should the Aztecs do when they encounter the Spanish force of Hernan Cortez?
WHI: What should the people of Northern France do when faced with the threat of the Vikings?
WHII: What should King Henry VIII do when faced with a crisis of succession?
WHII: Evaluation the alternative choices that France, England, and Spain faced in their colonial plans for the New World.

26. NOTE: When analyzing historical choices (instead of personal choices) using a PACED grid, assigning a number value to each alternative might not be meaningful. In these cases, you might just use plusses and minuses to show incentives an disincentives.
See the example on the next slide, concerning the choices faced by subjects of the Aztec Empire who encountered Cortes’ conquistador force.
You can do this for analyzing things from today’s perspective, or from the perspective of those making the choice at the time.

27. ++ - + + - - - - - + + - E: EVALUATE THE ALTERNATIVES
Rate On A Scale From ++ (Best) to - - (Worst)
Problem: What to do when faced with conquistadors?
Freedom from Aztecs
Get access to
horses
Avoid risks
Many of the Aztecs’ subjects chose to aid the conquistadors ++
Help them fight Aztecs -
+ +
Fight against them; be loyal to Aztecs
- - -
- -
My numbers are different than your numbers. What you think is important in making the decision is different than what I think is important. You can’t grade students on getting the correct numbers… its about the process. Stress that – its’ about the process. + + -
Try to be neutral

28. Making Choices
How can we help our students to make thoughtful choices?
Consider the costs and benefits of each decision.
If they have to make a choice, it’s due to scarcity. What’s scarce?
What am I giving up (opportunity cost)?

29. Compare and Contast WG.1e, WHI.1e, WHII.1e
The skill of comparing and contrasting perspectives in history involves breaking down information and then categorizing into similar and dissimilar pieces.

30. Compare and Contast WG.1e, WHI.1e, WHII.1e
What ever you want to do with this is up to you. It’s in the histories and geography but not in Govt or Civics

31. GET HELP FROM THE VIRGINIA COUNCIL ON ECONOMIC EDUCATION www.vcee.org