Interactive Opportunity Cost

This a cool activity to use when teaching opportunity cost.

I walk around the room with two different types of sweets. I usually use maltesers and lollies. As long as there is a choice involved it doesn’t really matter.

I tell each student they can have one sweet and one only, forcing them to make a choice. Once they all have their sweet I let them eat it.

After this little treat, I give them a post it note each. I ask them to write on the post it note all the good things or benefits of that sweet. So, for maltesers they write down thngs like ‘chocolate’, ‘honeycombe centre’, ‘the crunch’ etc etc.

I then have a picture of each sweet on my interactive whiteboard and then they come up and stick their note on the relevant picture.

I then go through the post it notes explaining what they have missed out on. Bingo. Opportunity cost.

Yes, there is a chance that they will all take the same sweet. But, its never happened to me.

I then develop the concept from there.

Job done..........

Starter Activity - Spot the Difference

My two daughters love playing spot the difference. Come to think of it, so do I. If I love it, and my daughters love it, then maybe my students will love it.

So, thinking of a different way to deliver Hard and Soft HRM, I came up with this very, very simple idea. Spot the difference.

On a sheet of paper I had two stories of two different businesses. One who adopted a hard approach and one who adopted a soft approach. Wrote the stories myself I did. Both stories contained the key features of both approaches (temp contracts, autocratic management etc for hard and the opposite for soft) and lots of data (increasing labour turnover and absenteeism for hard, declining for soft etc etc etc).

Then, my students had to play spot the difference.

The results, well, each student had built up a complete picture of the difference between both approaches along with the key features and the pros and cons of each approach.

It worked a treat. Didn’t feel as though they were being taught at all. Far better than running through the differences on the board.

We then analysed the issues and did some evaluation.

Job done. 

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Auction House - Team Challenge (3)

The aim of this week’s team challenge is to test student’s knowledge of key terms within the HR aspect of the BUSS3 spec and to also see whether or not they have kept up with this weeks’ business news.  (As always, these quiz games are easily adaptable to any subject or course, just need to change the questions, double click on each house.)

A Day in the Life - Cash Flow Forecasting

This is a good starter activity for cash flow forecasting.

At the start of the lesson, I tell students that I am going to tell them what I did on the previous Saturday, ‘a day in my life’, and that they need to listen carefully.

I start off by saying something along the lines of, “I get up, get showered and get ready. I have £30 in my pocket. I walk to the metro station and on the way buy a newspaper and a bottle of Diet Coke costing £1.50. The metro costs £4.00 into town...”

I then describe a number of instances where I spend cash and receive cash. For receiving cash I say that I am returning some clothes to a number of shops and that I meet my brother who gives me back some money he owes me.

I then ask the kids to tell me how much money I have in my pocket at the end of the day.

Bingo. A mini-cash flow statement.

You normally need to do it twice and it works brilliantly with mini-whiteboards if the kids write down the ‘cash in’ and then the ‘cash out’.

I then move into ‘formal cash flow’.

The kids like it and you can make your day as ‘interesting’ as you like.

Enjoy..........

‘I read the news today, Oh boy’

Starter / Plenary Activity - The Business Studies Categories Game

Here is a business studies game that might prove popular in an end-of-year lesson or two, or perhaps as a way of getting new business students thinking about their subject…