One weekend, my grandmother asked me to go to the store and get some mustard for her. I wanted to get the best mustard for her, so I tried to clarify what exactly she meant by mustard. “Mammaw, do you want coarse ground, spicy brown, Cajun-style, Creole, Dijon? What kind of mustard do you want? To which she replied, “I just want mustard.”

I think about this exchange frequently as I see presentations that list so many choices of tools that many teachers I talk with seem overwhelmed. Those of us who support teachers need to be mindful of how we present technology and learning tools to teachers.

“To Make Better Choices, Choose Less” an interview with business professor Sheena Iyengar caught my eye in the June 2010 issue of Money magazine. Her new book is the Art of Choosing.

Here are my keepers from this article.

• Choice is powerful.
• Choice can overwhelm.
• Three tasks involved in choosing
  • You need to know what you want. (Difficult if presented with something new.)
  • You need to be able to understand the relevant options.
  • You need to make trade-offs.
• The “jam study” in the 90s illustrated that more options hamper decision making.
  • 24 flavors drew in 60% of passersby. Only 3% of them bought jam.
  • 6 flavors drew in only 40% of passersby. 30% of them bought jam.
• Brain research from the 1950s indicates that we can manage 5-9 choices. More choices than that created paralysis and frustration.
• 3 x 3 model for scaffolding choice. Present three tiers. After one is selected, then present three choices within that tier.
• Personally, select four or five areas to become an expert. Make the choices within that area. Other than those areas, defer to trusted experts.

Since this was written in a business magazine, she interpreted the results as they relate to investing in retirement funds. The more choices presented to employees, the fewer people enrolled in them.

This makes me wonder about what we do to teachers when we give them so many choices of websites, tools, learning opportunities for students. How can we better structure our offerings so that it is helpful to teachers and now overwhelming?

For the record, I really do like that mustard with the horseradish in it.