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TAG Strategy for this Lesson: Decision Making

Unit Name
Solids, Liquids, & Gases

Lesson Name Time Needed (Hours/Days)

“Deflategate, You’ve Been Served!” 1 90-min block/period

Grade Subject Course

10th – 11th Science Honors Chemistry

GA Standards of Excellence & TAG Standards

Please include both GSE & TAG Standards

GSE Standards
SC5. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about the Kinetic Molecular Theory to model
atomic and molecular motion in chemical and physical processes.
c. Develop and use models to quantitatively, conceptually, and graphically represent the
relationships between pressure, volume, temperature, and number of moles of a gas.

TAG Standards
Advanced Communication Skills Standard
1. The student uses written, spoken, technological media to convey new learning or challenge
existing ideas.
2. The student produces written and/or oral work that is complex, purposeful, and organized,
includes relevant supporting examples and manipulation of language.
3. The student creates products and/or presentations that synthesize information from diverse
sources and communicate expertise to a variety of authentic audiences.
6. The student anticipates and addresses potential misunderstandings biases, and expectations in
communication with others.
7. The student responds to contributions of others, considering all available information.
8. The student participates in small group discussions to argue persuasively or reinforce others’
good points.
10. The student supports and defends his/her own opinions while respecting the opinions of
others.

Advanced Research Skills Standard

1. The student uses a variety of print and non-print resources to investigate a topic of interest.
2. The student formulates original and appropriate questions to test the limits of an existing body
of knowledge.
3. The student uses concepts within and across disciplines to develop valid hypotheses, thesis
statements, or alternative interpretations of data.
5. The student gathers, organizes, analyzes, and synthesizes data from multiple sources to
support disprove a hypothesis.
7. The student evaluates research methodologies and data to detect validity, bias, reliability, and
applicability to real-world problems and/or solutions.
8. The student allows for and accepts alternative interpretations of data.

Creative Thinking & Problem-Solving Skills Standard

2. The student designs, applies, evaluates, and adapts a variety of innovative strategies to when
problem-solving (e.g., recognizes problems, defines problems, identifies possible solutions,
selects optimal solution, implements solution, and evaluates solution).
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3. The student incorporates brainstorming and their idea-generating techniques (synectics,
SCAMPER, etc.) to solve problems or create new products.
4. The student demonstrates skills in fluency and flexibility to solve problems or create new
products.
5. The student develops original ideas, presentations, or products through synthesis and
evaluation.
8. The student tolerates ambiguity when solving problems.
9. The student recognizes and assumes risks as a necessary part of problem-solving.
10. The student monitors and reflects on the creative process of problem-solving for future
applications.

Higher Order Critical Thinking Skills Standard

1. The student asks probing, insightful, and relevant questions.
3. The student conducts comparisons using criteria.
7. The student examines an issue from more than one point of view.
8. The student separates one’s own point of view from that of others.
9. The student identifies stereotypes, biases, and prejudices in one’s own reasoning and that of
others.
10. The student distinguishes between assumptions, inferences, and conclusions.
11. The student draws conclusions based upon relevant information while discarding irrelevant
information.
12. The student evaluates conclusions based upon relevance, depth, breadth, logic, and fairness.
13. The student traces the sources of any large disparity between estimates and calculated
solutions to problems and resolves the disparity.

Essential Question(s)
What should students know when lesson is completed?

How do temperature, pressure, and volume affect a given quantity of a gas?

How does Gay-Lussac’s law explain the relationship between pressure and temperature?

Teacher Lesson Preparation

Ensure technology and web sources are functional and accessible.

Class Set of Each of the Following:
 Decision-Making Style Inventory
 Decision-Making Style Descriptions
 Deflategate Article (One for each group.)
 Deflategate Data Link: http://a.espncdn.com/pdf/2015/0506/PatriotsWellsReport.pdf (With
references to specific pages.)
 Decision-Making Graphic Organizer Packet (One for each group.)
 Brainstorming Rules (One for each group.)
 Rules for Consensus Building (One for each group.)
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Activating Strategy (For example: Hook/Mini-Lesson/Warm-Up/Connection to Prior Learning)

Teacher will display the word “Decision” on the whiteboard and ask students about how they believe
they act while in the process of making decisions. After engaging in a short class discussion, the
teacher will inform students that there are 4 different types of decision makers (sequential, logical,
global, and personable) and have students complete the decision-making inventory developed by
Harvey Silver and Robert Hanson. Once the students have completed the inventory, they will use a
physical barometer to discuss their styles. After sharing their styles in a roll-call fashion with the
class, students will be group into 4 corners/different designated areas in the classroom based on their
decision-making style where they will read more about their dominant style and discuss whether they
agree/disagree with the analysis. Each group will, then, share out a summary of their dominant style
and the discussion they had amongst each other regarding similarities and differences. Teacher will
allow students to ask questions to other groups as they share out, sparking an authentic collaboration
of ideas driven by interests.

Instructional Sequence and Activities (Including use of technology.)

Teacher will introduce today’s lesson by informing students that it will follow the previous class’s
lesson implemented by the Creative Problem-Solving strategy. Teacher will express, “Last class, you
utilized the creative problem-solving strategy to create a method for assessing if the New England
Patriots cheated in their AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts by deflating the
footballs, but today, you get back into those same groups and play the roles of both decision makers
AND decision evaluators (of the decision already made) to decide whether or not the Patriots cheated
using a range of statistical data from the original experiment.”

Teacher will provide each group with the “Brainstorming Rules” and “Consensus Building”
worksheets to serve as reminders of the steps to brainstorming and ensuring that everyone is provided
with an equal opportunity to share and explain their ideas.

Next, the teacher will give each group a copy of the Deflate-MESS article from the previous class to
refresh their memory/understanding of the problem. Teacher will, then, provide students with the data
set link (including the proper page numbers) for them to analyze. After reading and analyzing both
the article and the data set, each group will designate a “recorder” and will use the decision-making
graphic organizer to complete/address each of the following requirements for the decision-making
process:
2. What is the problem?
3. Who does the problem and decision affect?
4. What can be done? (Teacher will assist students in developing their criteria.)
5. How can we decide which decision is best?
6. Evaluate your decision options using criteria.
7. What is your decision?

After each group completes their graphic organizer, the teacher will inform the students that the
Deflategate case is set to go up for a retrial and they are responsible for preparing a closing statement
that will be presented in court (in front of the class as a whole) using their decision and evidence in
order to find the New England Patriots innocent or guilty of cheating in the AFC Championship in
2015. Each group will designate their lawyer who will speak on their behalf (those in favor of the
Patriots will serve as the defense and those who are in favor of the Colts will serve as the
prosecution) and present their case to the judge (the teacher). Although this will be a fun activity that
will allow the student will an opportunity to verbally communicate their decision, it will also allow
the students to examine their own and others’ decision-making.
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At the end of the class period, students will be provided with an opportunity to reflect and share their
personal thoughts and feelings about the content and their decision-making process. Students will
also be asked to analyze how their dominant style (which they determined while completing the
decision-making inventory) shined through while they were completing the activity.

Assessment Strategies

The methods of assessment will come in 4 parts:

1. Their engagement throughout the activity through the use of the strategy will be assessed and
will also allow the teacher to gauge the efficiency of the strategy’s implementation. It will
also help the teacher gauge their ability to engage in the strategy’s 4 principles:
a. Background Knowledge – Ability to examine the content and develop a deep and
comprehensible perspective while eliminating particularly unfeasible alternatives.
b. Alternatives – Ability to brainstorm solutions in order to make choices from a range of
possibilities.
c. Criteria – Ability to evaluate implicit/explicit information with values to attached in
order to eliminate impractical/weak alternatives.
d. Reflection – Ability to examine their own and others’ decision-making.
2. Each group will turn in their Decision-Making graphic organizer that should have been
completed with maximum, genuine effort.
3. Each group will present their final argument in court (in the classroom to the rest of the class)
as either the defense or the prosecutor to communicate their decision and justifications.
Teacher will use this activity as a way to assess their decision-making as well as their
understanding of the content and communication of their findings.
4. Each student will be provided with time to reflect and share their thoughts and feelings about
the content and their decision-making process. Teacher will use this as an additional
assessment of the strategy’s implementation.

Differentiation
Scaffolds/ Interventions/Extensions/Enrichment

Differentiation is initially seen in this lesson as students are grouped heterogeneously based on their
previous display of master throughout the gas law lessons. These groups were utilized in the previous
creative problem-solving lesson and the groups will remain the same throughout the day’s lesson.
Additionally, this lesson, which is based on the decision-making learning/teaching strategy, is an
example of differentiation as it channels students individually by giving them an unique opportunity
to become personally involved in accessing and manipulating content through the lends of their own
personal value system. Lastly, differentiation can be seen at the end of the lesson when each group
presents their findings in the classroom court which will be driven by their individual interests.

Materials/Links/Text References/Resources

LINK: http://a.espncdn.com/pdf/2015/0506/PatriotsWellsReport.pdf
Each of the following additional required documents are included below on pages 6-17:
 Decision-Making Style Inventory
 Decision – Making Style Descriptions
 Deflategate Article
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 Rules for Brainstorming
 Rules for Consensus Building
 Deflategate Decision-Making Graphic Organizer
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MY DECISION-MAKING STYLE
Developed by Harvey F. Silver & J. Robert Hanson

INSTRUCTIONS

This is an informed survey to look at one’s approach to making decisions. There are no right or wrong
answers. As you think about how you make decisions, one or more of the categories will sound “right.”
Assign the number values you think best represent design-making processes. Please don’t skip any items.

DIRECTIONS

Each question has four possible responses. You may distribute five (5) points over the four responses in
whatever ways best suit your decision-making style. For example, in question 1, “My approach to decision
making emphasizes…” option (a) strongly. So, I will assign letter (a) a 4. But to a lesser degree, I also often
“take one step at a time” so I would assign a 1 to letter (d).

The five (5) points may be distributed as follows:

I do this nearly all the time =5
I do this frequently =4
I do this more than half the time =3
I do this infrequently or not at all =0

When you assign less than five (5) to a given response, you then may assign the remaining number(s) to a
second or third choice, for example:

a=3 a=4 a=3

b or b=1 or b
c=2 c c=1
d d d=1

When assigning number to choices, the total can never be more than five (5) for each question.

Complete the following inventory by assigning the number values that you think best represent you within
the decision-making process.

1. My approach to decision-making emphasizes.

a. ______ thinking about the decision, examining it from different perspectives, analyzing the
alternatives, and selecting the most logical solution.
b. ______ looking beyond the facts to the broader picture, trusting my intuition in deciding what
needs to be done.
c. ______ “getting in the middle of the decision,” finding out how others and I feel, and choosing
an alternative that feels right and will be acceptable.
d. ______ taking one step at a time, relying on my past experience to guide me, and choosing an
alternative which is pragmatic and down to earth.
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2. As a decision maker, I most value:
a. ______ flexibility.
b. ______ thorough analysis.
c. ______ diplomacy.
d. ______ decisiveness.

3. As a decision maker in high-stress situations, I am most likely to get:

a. ______ so involved in the details that I lose sight of the big picture.
b. ______ carried away with new ideas to the extent that I ignore the immediate details.
c. ______ so involved in analyzing the decision that I fail to recognize interpersonal needs, my
own and those of others.
d. ______ so enmeshed in my feelings, I may fail to think things through thoroughly.

4. When I’m making a tough decision, I prefer working with:

a. ______ imaginative people.
b. ______ realistic people.
c. ______ intellectual people.
d. ______ friendly people.

5. As a decision maker, I tend to pay more attention to:

a. ______ logic.
b. ______ feelings.
c. ______ possibilities.
d. ______ actions.

6. As a decision maker, I’m more likely to be:

a. ______ quick.
b. ______ analytical.
c. ______ imaginative.
d. ______ emotional.
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INSTRUCTIONS FOR SCORING

When scoring your responses, transfer the number you assigned for each question to the same letter below.
For example, if on the first question, you assigned a 4 to letter (d) and a 1 to letter (a), it would look like the
following:

Example:
4
1. d. _______ 1
a. _______ b. _______ c. _______

DOMINANT DECISION-MAKING STYLE

Sequential Logical Global Personable
1. d. _______ a. _______ b. _______ c. _______
2. d. _______ b. _______ a. _______ c. _______
3. a. _______ c. _______ b. _______ d. _______
4. b. _______ c. _______ a. _______ d. _______
5. d. _______ a. _______ c. _______ b. _______
6. a. _______ b. _______ c. _______ d. _______

Total
Points

My dominant decision-making style is _______________________________________.

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BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS OF THE DECISION-MAKING STYLES

Sequential
Sequential decision makers need lot of specific information, the details of what’s being asked, instructions on
the best way of doing things, evidence that particular procedures work best, and steps for doing the task
correctly. The sequential decision maker might ask: “What are the steps? Who’s done this before? How do I
know if I’m right? Where are the directions? What’s the end result supposed to look like?”

Logical
Logical decision makers want the specifics, but more than that, they want reasons, defensible positions, and a
clear understanding of the possible results of the different choices. They tend to balance off one set of
choices in relationship to others. They exercise objective and critical judgement I order to not make choices
on the basis of personal feelings. While they know no single choice is optimal, they try to make the best
choice(s) from among the available options. The logical decision maker might ask: “Have we examined all
the possibilities? Have we correctly defined the problem? Do we have enough evidence? Can we defend our
choice(s) based on a critical analysis of all the data?”

Global
Global decision makers want to explore all the possibilities. This process includes what exists as well as that
which can be imagined. They need specifics, but more than that, they need a feeling of “fit,” of elegance, of
an expanded and more inclusive view of what’s possible. They are not restrained so much by data as by
exploring the possible. They feel the need to be more creative. Their decisions tend to be more inclusive and
focused on what’s good for everyone. They think in images and express themselves artfully. The global
decision maker might ask: “Isn’t there a better way? Have we explored all possibilities? How can we
visualize this? What new images need to be created? What’s an artful way to express this problem? What
metaphors and visual devices do we need to express our decision-making processes and conclusions?”

Personable
Personable decision makers need lots of specific information, good problem definitions, and the sharing of
other people’s experiences. But even more than that, they need to explore their own and other people’s
feelings about the decision(s) being faced. They look for ways to draw out their own and others’ values.
They want the decision-making process to be collegial, cooperative, and sensitive to the individual’s needs.
They decide best where the environment is relaxed, friendly, and supportive of individual needs. They need
to take extensively to make sure each person’s point-of-view has been expressed and heard. They need
continual verbalizations of steps taken and conclusions drawn. They search for both consensus and a feeling
of “group ownership” of process and conclusion. Personable decision makers might ask: “How do I feel
about what I’m doing? Do I have all the specific facts as well as feelings? How does the process relate to my
prior experience? Do I like (dislike) what’s happening? Is this a good decision for me as well as for others?
Will this decision be difficult for others to understand and accept?” They tend to look for precedent, to
benefit from the experience of others, to be somewhat precise about details and procedures, and to keep good
records. Their approach tends to emphasize the practical and the doable.
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Rules for Brainstorming

1. Go for quantity.

2. Wild and crazy ideas are okay!

3. Piggy-back on the ideas of others.

4. No judgment – positive OR
negative!
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Rules for Consensus Building

1. Every student in the group gets an equal

opportunity to share information, ideas, and
concerns.

2. Keep in mind that exploring different

opinions helps foster discussion and leads to
more innovative and effective solutions.

3. Work though the impasse by looking for the

most acceptable outcome for everyone. Don’t
give up on your positions simply to avoid
conflict.

4. Avoid taking the easy way out through

arbitrary techniques (e.g., flipping a coin,
picking an idea out of a hat, or taking a
majority vote).
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“Deflate-MESS”
The following information was obtained as part of an investigation by the National Football League (NFL) to
determine if the New England Patriots cheated by purposefully deflating footballs during the conference title game
against the Indianapolis Colts on January 18th, 2015 in Foxboro, MA. Th e information provided comes directly from
the “Investigative Report Concerning Footballs Used During the AFC Championship Game on January 18, 2015” that
was commissioned by the NFL. Your job is to analyze the data that was collected and determine if the scientific
evidence suggests that the Patriots purposefully deflated footballs to gain a competitive advantage. Remember to base
all of your conclusions on your analysis of the collected data. Each team in the NFL provides 12 footballs to be used
when their team is on offense. The officials check and approve the footballs before play begins. It is alleged that the
Patriots tampered with the footballs after the official checked the footballs and before play began.

Summarized NFL Rules about Required Football Pressure for Footballs

1. Each team shall provide 12 footballs two and a half hours before the start of the game to be approved by
officials.
2. Each football must be inflated to a pressure between 12.5 and 13.5 psi. Th e pressure listed is a gauge pressure,
meaning that the football must be inflated 12.5 to 13.5 psi above atmospheric pressure.

Official Inspection of Footballs Before the Start of the Game

The head official inspected the footballs for both the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts before the game
began. The official had in his possession two different pressure gauges for checking footballs. Before the game he used
one of the two gauges to measure the pressure of the footballs, but he later could not recall which gauge was used.
During inspection of the footballs, the official did not take any detailed records, but he did recall that most of the
Patriots’ footballs registered at 12.5 psi and that most of the Colts’ footballs measured at 13.0 psi. Some of the
footballs might have been slightly off from these values, but the official could not remember the specifics. These
findings are consistent with statements from both teams. The Patriots aimed to inflate their footballs to 12.5 psi and the
Colts aimed to inflate their footballs to 13.0 psi. Testing of the footballs took about 25 minutes.

Start of the Game and First Half Play

Twenty minutes before the game was to begin the officials could not locate the footballs; the ball boy for the Patriots
had already taken all of the footballs to the field without permission of the officials. Security footage shows that the
ball boy entered a bathroom with the footballs and was inside the bathroom for one minute and forty seconds. It is
alleged that the Patriots footballs were deflated while the ball boy was in the bathroom. The evening football game was
played in Foxboro, MA. The temperature at the time of kick-off was 9 °C. In the first half of the football game the
Patriots quarterback threw a pass that was caught by the opposing team (Colts). The Colts player noticed that the ball
seemed underinflated. The report of the Colts player led to coaches on the Colts alerting officials that the footballs the
Patriots were using could be improperly inflated, violating league rules.
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Deflategate Decision-Making Graphic Organizer

1. Read and analyze the given information.

2. What is the problem?

3. Who does the problem and decision affect?

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4. What can be done? (Brainstorm numerous decision options: at least three and
then as many as you can additionally.)
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5. How can we decide which decision is best? (Brainstorm criteria to evaluate or
judge the decision options: at least three and then as many as you can
additionally.)
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6. Evaluate your decision options using the criteria. (For each decision option,
explain why it is good or bad according to each criterion. You may use this
chart to help you organize your thinking if you wish, or you can use the back
of this paper.)

Criteria →

Totals

Solutions ↓
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.
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7. What is your decision? (In paragraph form, justify your decision with evidence
from the article, data set, and from your criteria.)

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