Spend a Buck

Each group member gets 100 cents (or 10 stickers) to distribute across a list of options. The distribution becomes the basis for discussion: why did you spend 60 on this and 0 on that?

Quantifies priority, then uses the quantification as discussion material.

Procedure

1. Present a list of 5–8 options: Five things schools should focus on / Five changes you'd make to the city / Five actions to fight climate change.
2. Each student privately distributes 100 cents across the options. All 100 must be spent; any distribution is valid (100 on one item; 20 on each of five; and so on).
3. In groups, students reveal their distributions on a shared table.
4. Discussion: Why did you spend 80 here? Who spent nothing on that — why?
5. Groups negotiate a group distribution — final 100 cents shared across options, must be consensus.
6. Groups compare final distributions across the class.

Why It Works

• Commits priorities numerically: important becomes how important, exactly?
• Productive disagreement: different distributions surface different values.
• Negotiation language: the group consensus phase forces hedging, concession, persuasion.
• Visible patterns: rows of numbers reveal how the group thinks collectively.

Good Question Sets

Context	Items
Priorities for learning English	accuracy, fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, confidence
City improvements	transport, parks, housing, education, healthcare, cleanliness
Personal goals	career, health, relationships, travel, creativity
Climate action	renewable energy, reduce meat, public transport, recycling, tree planting
Teacher quality	knowledge, empathy, fairness, entertainment, structure

Variations

• Spend a Buck privately first, publicly second: compare shift in reasoning.
• Negotiation only: skip private phase; group must distribute 100 cents together from scratch.
• Token version: use 10 physical tokens (coins, stickers, paperclips). Visible and tactile.

Tips

• Keep item lists to 5–8. More than that and numerical precision is lost.
• Allow unequal distributions, including 0 on some items. Not every option deserves money.
• Debrief the group decision, not just the individual ones. How did your group resolve big differences?