Giving Students Choice: Planning and making decisions together.

All year long students have sat together in groups. Each group is named after a college in Washington (UW, WSU, Seattle U, Seattle Pacific U, WWU, and Gonzaga). Groups are important for communication, collaboration, and provide a sense of belonging. Together, students become a part of a whole. Students for the most part have the opporutnity to move their desks where they see fit. Some have chosen to steer away from the group and sit alone. At the beginning of the year, they chose to use a draft system when it was time to change desks. Every month or so, a student would communicate using the "Parking Lot" to let the class know that they thought it was time for groups to change.

For the last three weeks I decided to let the students choose how they'd like the desks to be set up. Any student who had an idea came up with a blueprint plan and presented it to the class. Students then had a chance to preview the plans and anonymously drop their vote in a hat.

Here was the result:
  
It's too often that decisions are made for students without asking them what they want. If someone (teacher) is always making the decisions, as a student, it's easy to always comply or wait for something to happen. As you can see, these students do not shy from generating ideas and making decisions.  I truly believe that if we give students opportunities to make decisions, eventually they will become better decision makers.