Principles of Business

PRINCIPLES OF BUSINESS

Lesson Plans

2014-2015

Date

Assigned / Activities
«  Project Introductions/Briefings
Ø  Lab Time
ü  Speaker/presentations / Handouts
Supplies
Lab
Week 1
Day 1 / Welcome!
Introduce HSB™ Boot Camp
Activity #1—The Coffee Shop (25 minutes)
(In this activity, students assume the roles of coffee shop employees to fill complex drink orders. In the process, students build their abilities to think quickly and act decisively. The impact of organizational and listening skills on productivity is also emphasized.)
Process:
1.  Before class, prepare the index cards required for this activity (see p. 5-6).
2.  During class, divide the class into teams of three students each.
3.  Assign each person in the team to be a different aspect of a coffee order: size (e.g., short, tall, etc.); drink type (e.g., coffee, cappuccino, etc.); and modifier (e.g., foam, whip, etc.).
4.  Give each team member a set of index cards containing all of the possible options for his/her aspect of the coffee order.
5.  Call out a drink order from the list on p. 5-7.
6.  Each team must organize itself in the proper sequence for that drink order. Time each round.
7.  Repeat steps 4 and 5 as time permits.
Wrap-up—Following the activity, encourage students to discuss their reactions to the first drink order. What challenges did they face during the first round? What did they do differently in subsequent rounds to improve their productivity?
Class Rules, Regulations, and Expectations
Syllabus
Project Overviews: HSB™ Boot Camp, Lights, Camera…Business, Snapshot, The Big Squeeze, and Business to the Rescue! / The Coffee Shop index cards
http://youtu.be/4VOubVB4CTU
Syllabus
Day 2 / HSB™ Boot Camp
Activity #2—Whom Can You Trust? (10 minutes)
(This activity, which requires students to complete a lengthy quiz in a very short period of time, helps students to see the value of trusting others and working together in teams.)
Process:
1.  Before class, duplicate the HSB™ Boot Camp Quiz found on page 5-9—one per student.
2.  During class, tell students that they will be taking a quiz today.
3.  Explain the rules for the quiz:
a.  You may use any resource in the classroom that you want.
b.  You only have two minutes to complete the quiz.
c.  You may work by yourself or in a group of up to four people.
4.  Provide no other information about the quiz, and do not answer any questions that students might have about the quiz.
5.  Pass out the quiz.
6.  At the end of two minutes, collect the quizzes and review the answers.
Wrap-up—After reviewing the quiz with the class, ask the students to indicate—through a show of hands—how many of them answered every question correctly. Then, ask these students to explain their approach(es) to completing the quiz. Did they work with others, or did they complete the quiz by themselves? Chances are that most of them worked on the quiz in teams. Ask students to explain why they chose to work together. What were the benefits of working in teams?
Introduce Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA)
Read information about the club and how it ties in with HSB™
Pass out information about joining, including club dues and state fees associated with being a member of FBLA. / HSB™ Boot Camp Quiz
New FBLA Chapter Application
Day 3 / HSB™ Boot Camp
Activity #3—The Big Picture (30-45 minutes)
(In this activity, individual students within a team work on small segments of a larger image. While completing their assigned tasks, students realize the importance and need for collaboration.)
Process:
1.  Before class, select an image to be the focus of this activity. This image might be a photo of last year’s HSB™ students, a colorful piece of artwork, etc. Print one 8½” X 11” copy of this image for each group of eight students. Cut the large image into eight pieces, and glue each smaller image to a piece of cardstock.
2.  During class, divide students into teams of eight people each. Give each member of the team one of the eight pieces of the larger image, along with a blank piece of 8½” X 11” paper. Make sure that each team has a variety of crayons, colored pencils, or markers to work with.
3.  Do NOT tell the class that the team members’ small images are all part of one larger image.
4.  Explain that each of the eight members of a team is responsible for drawing her/his small image on a larger sheet of paper (8½” X 11”).
5.  Tell students that they may talk with their teammates while they work.
6.  Give students approximately 20-30 minutes to work on their drawings.
7.  After calling “time,” instruct each group to post its members’ work on the wall in the correct order. At this point, allow teammates to figure out the correct order for their images, if they have not done so already.
8.  Ask everyone to step back to see how each student’s work is part of a larger complete image.
Wrap-up—Ask each team to explain how its members worked on this activity. Did someone take charge? Did teammates work on their own images without noticing the others’ work? When did they realize (if they realized) that they were all working on pieces of a larger image? How did this realization change the team’s approach to completing the work? Emphasize that this activity shows how a larger project is made up of many different parts. / Several copies of a large image (see step #1 below); scissors; glue; cardstock; blank 8½” X 11” paper; crayons, colored pencils, or markers; something to use to temporarily attach students’ work to the wall
Day 4 / HSB™ Boot Camp
Activity #4—High School of Business™ CSI (15 minutes)
(In this simple activity, students are given a short description of a crime scene. Then, using simple “yes or no” questions, students are expected to solve the crime.)
Process:
1.  Explain to the class that High School of Business™ crime-scene investigators want to test students’ ability to solve a complex crime.
2.  Read the following description of the crime scene to the class:
a.  There is a small room.
b.  There is a window in the room that is open.
c.  There is a table in the room.
d.  There is broken glass on the floor.
e.  There is also water all over the floor.
f.  There are two dead bodies on the floor.
g.  What happened?
3.  At this point, allow students to ask “yes and no” questions until they solve the crime.
4.  What crime occurred? The wind blew a fish bowl off the table. The two dead bodies are fish.
Wrap-up—Ask students to describe how they felt after hearing the crime-scene description. Did they feel uncomfortable, or were they excited about solving the crime? Then, encourage them to explain why they asked the particular questions that they asked to solve the crime. Finally, explain that students will be presented with many problems in their HSB™ courses that they won’t know the answers to initially. Stress that by keeping an open mind and asking the right questions, they can solve just about any problem that comes their way.
Continue with any unfinished FBLA business.
Review Schoology and how to access information for this course.
Can do Activity #5 if need be.
Day 5 / HSB™ Boot Camp
Activity #5—Juggling (15 minutes)
(This activity, which is best done outside, in the gym, or in some other open area, teaches students the importance of communication, adaptability, and teamwork when faced with a challenge.)
Process:
1.  Instruct the class to form a circle.
2.  Give one ball to someone in the circle.
3.  Instruct that person to throw the ball to anyone else in the group except for the people immediately next to her/him.
4.  The person who catches the ball throws it to someone else in the same manner until everyone in the circle has had a chance to catch and throw the ball at least once.
5.  Then, repeat the process—with one minor change: This time, rather than using just one ball for the entire exercise, periodically add ball after ball until the group begins dropping the balls. Make sure that each student throws each of the balls to the same person each time.
6.  When the group begins dropping the balls, stop the exercise. Give students an opportunity to brainstorm a process for handling the additional balls.
7.  Repeat the process once more—using the class’s strategy for keeping all of the balls up in the air.
Wrap-up— Ask students to explain why throwing one ball around the circle was easy as opposed to throwing multiple balls, which was much more difficult. Encourage students to describe how they felt when using one ball versus many. Then, ask them to discuss the benefits that developing an overall strategy and working together as a team helped them to be more successful when faced with multiple responsibilities. / 8-10 Tennis balls, balloons, or other small objects
Week 2
Day 1 / HSB™ Boot Camp
Activity #6—Doing Research Online (50+ minutes)
(This activity is very different from the rest of the HSB™ Boot Camp activities. It is based on a series of lessons created by the Golda Meir Library at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The focus of all three lessons to be completed during this activity is online research.)
Process:
1.  Complete the following three lessons. Each lesson contains directions for the instructor, discussion points, and hands-on learning activities.
·  Evaluating Web Sites http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/ris/instruction/ip/evaluating.pdf
·  Selecting Appropriate Information Sources http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/ris/instruction/ip/sources.pdf
·  Recognizing Characteristics of Scholarly Journals and Popular Magazines http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/ris/instruction/ip/scholarly2.pdf
Wrap-up—Explain to students that these assignments provided them with a small taste of what they will be doing throughout the entire High School of Business™ program. They will be conducting loads of online research throughout the program, and learning now that some sources of information on the Web are more trustworthy than others will put them on the road to success. / Chromebook
Day 2 / HSB™ Boot Camp
Activity #7—120 (10-15 minutes)
(This activity, which is definitely more for the “math-inclined,” helps students to see that a problem can have many different solutions that are all correct. The students are given very little data and are asked to use their ingenuity to come up with an answer.)
Process:
1.  Divide the class into groups of three students each.
2.  Write the following five numbers on the board: 2, 3, 5, 10, 24.
3.  Instruct each team to use all five numbers and any mathematical operations of team members’ choice to make up a math problem equaling 120. For example:
·  (10 - 5) * 24 / (3 - 2) = 120
·  (10 - 5) (3 - 2) * 24 = 120
4.  Give the students 10 minutes to complete the problem.
5.  When “time” is up, ask a representative from each team to write her/his team’s math problem on the board, and check the teams’ answers.
Wrap-up—Point out to the students that different teams came up with different answers. In other words, although each team’s math problem may be very different from the others’, they are all correct. Explain that most of the projects in HSB™ are the same way; each project is likely to have multiple solutions. The different solutions may not look exactly like each other, but nevertheless, they can all be right.
Sister School Wikispace
Ø  Work to create Wikispace page / Calculators
Chromebook
Day 3 / HSB™ Boot Camp
Activity #8—Building a Pyramid (20 minutes)
(This activity challenges students to complete what may seem to many, at least initially, to be an impossible task. Through their work, students learn the importance of patience, persistence, and collaboration in problem solving.)
Process:
1.  Divide the class into groups of three students each.
2.  Give nine disposable cups and three pieces of string to each group.
3.  Explain to the class that the goal of this activity is to be the first team to build a pyramid using all of its cups. However, the students cannot touch the cups with their hands. Instead, they must use their pieces of string to move the cups into place.
4.  Give students 15 minutes to build their pyramids.
5.  When the first team finishes its pyramid, ask the team members to explain to the class how they build it without using their hands.
Wrap-up—Ask the class to discuss why some teams finished their pyramids, while others did not. Then, ask students what they would differently if given the opportunity to repeat the exercise. Finally, emphasize the importance of patience and persistence in this activity.
Google Online Portfolio / Styrofoam cups, 12” long pieces of string
Chromebook
Day 4 / HSB™ Boot Camp
Activity #9—Product Innovation Game (50+ minutes)
(The Product Innovation Game is the culminating activity for the HSB™ Boot Camp. Students are given the task of developing a new creative product using only the resources and supplies provided by the instructor. Through this activity, students gain confidence in themselves and their abilities to solve problems, think critically, and be creative.)
Process:
1.  Divide the class into teams of three or four students each.