Decision-led pedagogy treats judgement under uncertainty as the central object of professional learning. The premise, argued by John Dewey nearly a century ago and re-stated by every major taxonomy since, is that thinking begins in problematic situations and is verified by consequence, not by recall.
The pedagogical question
How do we teach calibrated judgement in disciplines where the right answer depends on context, trade-offs, and who is in the room?
What each tradition contributes, and what MyEdMentor takes from it.
Contribution
Dewey positions thinking as a sequence triggered by genuine doubt or difficulty, a felt problem that mobilises inquiry, hypothesis, and testing. Recall, by contrast, is not thinking; it is rehearsal.
In our sims
Every MyEdMentor simulation opens with a problem situation that contains genuine uncertainty, no answer key visible to the student or the AI advisor. The student must mobilise inquiry to act.
Contribution
The 2001 revision identifies Evaluate and Create as the highest cognitive verbs. These are explicit decision verbs: weigh evidence, choose, generate a course of action with justification.
In our sims
Our scoring rubrics weight Evaluate and Create verbs over Remember and Understand. A student who recalls correctly but fails to commit to a defended choice scores below one who chose and explained.
Contribution
Schön named professional competence as reflection-in-action: the ability to recognise and act on unique, uncertain, value-laden situations that academic knowledge cannot fully prescribe in advance.
In our sims
Live-turn simulations replicate reflection-in-action: students see consequences unfold mid-game and must adjust their next move accordingly, not wait for a debrief to learn.
Contribution
AACSB's 2020 business-accreditation standards mandate that learning outcomes include managerial decision-making under uncertainty, with assessment of student capability not just exposure.
In our sims
Each module ships with rubric templates aligned to AACSB Standard 4 decision verbs, assessable evidence, not just attendance.
Contribution
OECD frames student agency as the willingness and ability to set goals, reflect, and act responsibly, explicitly a decision-making competency, not a content competency.
In our sims
Agency is operationalised in our sims as the ability to override AI advisor recommendations with reasoning the student can name. We score the reasoning, not the choice.
Synthesis
Decision-led pedagogy is not new, its lineage runs through Dewey, Bloom, Schön, and the AACSB standards. What is new is the operational form: live simulations where every turn is a Bloom-level Evaluate or Create verb, scored against rubrics aligned to professional-body decision frameworks, with consequences the student must defend.
How Decision-led shows up in our sims
6–10 decision dilemmas per Boardroom pack. KPI consequences per Standard Sim. No multiple-choice trivia, every choice carries weight in the model.
The other DRIVE pillars
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