How do I finish the entire IB Business course in two years? Should I spend one day teaching this chapter or a week? I think these are some of the questions that most concerned me when I started teaching the subject. I wasn’t sure where I should focus my time and effort and where I could save some time and go through the content quickly. I have based this on my personal experience and looking at the depth in which each topic is examined. Over the past 6 years as a teacher, this is what I have figured out to be a good pace for Unit 1.
But, this will depend on a lot of factors. My classes are 50-55 minutes each, I have 5 classes a week with high level (HL) students and 3 classes a week with standard level (SL) students. Also, my students tend to be fairly quick learners and don’t struggle with many concepts. Most importantly, I have separate HL and SL groups, which I know is not possible in all schools. So, this might be different in practice for you in your school. It also depends if you include the same types of projects and activities. You can find my Unit 1 PowerPoints and activity pack here. However, I think this is a good starting place for most teachers.
Here is how I divide up the time for my high level (HL) students.
From this, you can see that I include a lot of activities to get them using the IB learner profile attributes and engaging deeply in the learning not just memorizing for the exam. However, I also do a few exams to get them into the habit of studying and reproducing their knowledge in exam conditions. Timing can be so hard for them! I also finish each unit with a project. More information about this project coming soon!
Here is how I split it up for standard level (SL). As you can see for timing’s sake since all of the content is SL/HL, I reduce the time spent on different chapters and remove some activities to ensure we finish around the same time.
This timing also helps me finish everything before the first term is over so that I can use that for report cards/term grades. With any extra time, I can start on Marketing. You can see the order I teach the units in in this post.
Is this about how much time you spend on each chapter? Do you have another way of teaching? Let me know if the comments below.