IB Courses: Group 3 (DP Business Mgmt, History, Economics)

In this series, which I’m calling the IB Course Description Project, we’re building an audio catalog of International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (DP) courses and Career-related Programme (CP) core experiences for students, parents, counselors, teachers, and colleges around the world.

Each episode brings the syllabus to life by exploring the learning, teaching, and student experience behind every course. These conversations can support course registration, help colleges better understand IB courses, introduce new teachers and counselors to the curriculum, or simply provide a deeper understanding of what makes each course unique.

Want to be part of the project? Use this form to enter your information or to nominate someone for the podcast.

Contact me (Jon Peterson) at IBMatters@mnibschools.org 

Our teacher guide for Business Management is Brad Opfer - IBEN Certified trainer

Our teacher guide for both History and Economics is James Jones - IBEN Certified trainer

Subject brief links: 

DP Business Management SL

DP Business Management HL

DP History Guide (first exams 2028)

DP Economics SL

DP Economics HL

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Transcript

Jon Peterson 0:00

Hi, and welcome back to IB Matters. This episode is part of an audio catalog describing IB Diploma Program courses. These are intended for use by students, teachers, counselors, parents, and college personnel interested in the nature and structure of these courses. Here I am interviewing teachers of IB Individuals and Societies classes. As of this recording, it includes business management with Brad Opfer and then history and economics, both with James Jones. You may listen to them in order, but they're divided into three chapters, so you can easily skip to the course you want to hear.

DP Business and Management

Jon Peterson 0:32

And I have with me today a business teacher, Brad Opfer. He was here in Minneapolis recently doing an extended essay workshop, and I found out that he does business as well. And so he's on with us today. So folks, , we're gonna go right through it and welcome to the podcast, Brad.

Brad Opfer 0:46

Well, thank you, John. It's a great opportunity to talk and collaborate with you again.

Jon Peterson 0:50

Yep, and for you listeners, I'm also gonna have the subject brief for business, IB business in the podcast notes. So you might want to follow along as Brad kind of goes through things. So Brad and I have agreed on kind of what to talk about, and he's gonna start out by just kind of talking through like the syllabus highlights, what the internal assessments are, exams, and so on.

Brad Opfer 1:10

Yeah, well, thank you, John. Yeah, as far as the business management course, there is a a great syllabus, a very comprehensive syllabus that covers that's broken down into five main units. Uh the first one being kind of an introductory to business management. And then the the remaining four are just basically the main business functions or departments, things like human resources, finance, marketing, and operations.

Jon Peterson 1:38

Okay.

Brad Opfer 1:38

In addition, in this new course, they have something called the business management toolkit, which lists a series, I think it's about 15 business tools that students need to know and how to apply. There's also the four key business concepts that the syllabus outlines. Students have to use one of these concepts as a lens in their internal assessment. And those four business concepts are that of ethics, sustainability, , creativity, and change. And then in addition, this course, just like a lot of the IB courses, and in particular the group three courses, it's really a focus on higher-level thinking of analysis and building up those analysis and evaluation skills. I think business management course is a little bit unique in that it does emphasize a lot of application and context in terms of learning about and applying business tools terms in case studies.

Jon Peterson 2:39

Uh, you want to talk a little bit about that internal assessment?

Brad Opfer 2:42

Right, yes. As far as the internal assessment for the business management course, it is a single research project. It's an 1800-word maximum research project where a student gets to evaluate a business issue or decision of a real life business organization. So it often offers a lot of opportunity for individual choice here for students to choose a business of interest and then to really kind of focus and leverage their interest in either aspects of marketing or finance or a combination of those topics.

Jon Peterson 3:17

So do they choose kind of famous businesses or might they be a local business?

Brad Opfer 3:21

Yeah, actually business students can choose either. As far as this internal assessment, it usually works best to do to choose a larger organization to make sure that there's enough resources available about that business issue or decision. But students can do have the opportunity to to make a lot of application or think about this course in context of local organizations as well.

Jon Peterson 3:49

Sure, sure. I would suppose with larger organizations, those materials are available to the public, many of those that they need to do their work.

Brad Opfer 3:57

Exactly. Yeah, so things like financial statements, , which is a is a good thing for a student to show their understanding of those and use some sort of quantitative analysis skills.

Jon Peterson 4:09

And then talk us through kind of the exams or how the evaluation is done.

Brad Opfer 4:14

As far as the exams, for standard level, there is two papers, paper one and paper two. For higher level, there is a third paper. Uh the internal assessment as I just described is common to both the standard level and higher level, so it's the exact same research project that they have to complete. The paper one is also a common paper. So SL and HL students will will take the same exact paper one, and then paper two and paper three is really where the course starts differentiating itself between standard level and higher level.

Jon Peterson 4:52

And just for the listeners, if you haven't heard one of these before, paper is IB's word for exam or or test.

Brad Opfer 4:58

That's right. That's right. Yeah, and for this course, this is where it really can emphasize the fact that we're learning these business tools, terms, theories, all within context. So not only do they have to have that basic knowledge and understanding of these items, but they then also have to apply it in context of these case studies that are present on these papers. And same questions.

Jon Peterson 5:26

So my recollection from having been involved with as a coordinator, case studies are presented annually. It's a different case study each year. So your your students are working with a case study for that whole school year.

Brad Opfer 5:38

Yes. Um as far as paper two and paper three, these are fictitious case studies or fictitious stimulus material that's presented on the day of the exam. As far as paper one, there's actually something that's unique in that students get a pre-release statement about three months prior to the exam, , which gives some indication as far as what type of business is going to be talked about and what kind of questions that they might have to answer within paper one.

Jon Peterson 6:05

Yeah. So even though the the businesses are fictitious, the actions and the skill set that they're developing is real and could be applied. That's the whole idea. They can apply it to the real world.

Brad Opfer 6:16

Exactly.

Jon Peterson 6:16

You've taught this for a while now. What do you what do you see it the kids getting out of the students taking away from this course?

Brad Opfer 6:22

Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I've seen is students really enjoy this course. This is something often different for them. It's different from the you know the traditional English or math or history classes, science classes that they've been taking. So they really enjoy it. Uh it's often, you know, can be an elective where a student is taking this as an additional course. I think the biggest one of the biggest things though that students need to keep in mind is this is this is a rigorous diploma program course. It just really focuses on the higher level thinking skills. So, regardless of if a student is going to go into business in the future or even if they don't, they're gonna gain a lot from this course as far as being able to develop those skills of analysis and evaluation.

Jon Peterson 7:13

Yeah, very transferable skills. Yeah, and then I think when you think about this also, this is often a course that we associate with the career program. So schools that have the career program will often use this business course as kind of a generic, hey, you're thinking about a track that involves any kind of entrepreneurship or business acumen. Having this course is a great you know thing to have in your pocket no matter what you end up doing. And even like you said, if you don't go into business, having these these skills of analysis and and understanding critical thinking that goes with this would be helpful.

Brad Opfer 7:48

Right. Yeah, I mean they even if students you know don't go major in business at university, you know, they developed a really understanding of how the business world works. So just thinking about you know how human resource management works or the leadership skills that people need in order to lead whatever adventures they go on in post-secondary, their post-secondary career.

Jon Peterson 8:14

You know, when I think of business and I remember the old days when I was in school, the business class back in the day was typing, but but it was you know, there was some you know accounting and things like that. How is this different from kind of a traditional course and a business course in high school?

Brad Opfer 8:28

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is it it it's just its comprehensive nature, , in that it's covering all the major aspects of business. You know, traditionally in high school, especially in the United States, these courses are kind of separated into like a marketing course or maybe an entrepreneur course. Your students get exposed to all aspects and all features of business and see how they interrelate, which is really neat. You know, there's also that big focus of international mindedness, so within the IB program. So being able to learn about the business world in local context, but also globally, what's happening and the differences between businesses that operate within their home country in different parts of the world. Um so I think that's that's probably some of the bigger aspects of what's different.

Jon Peterson 9:21

What do you what do you like about teaching it?

Brad Opfer 9:23

Yeah, so much. Uh the I think the biggest thing that I enjoy. I I actually started as a math teacher. And as a math teacher, no matter how great of a lesson you think you've made, a lot of it is just kind of getting them excited about math and and getting them through the curriculum. Here with business, this is something that you know students really have more of an innate interest in, and they bring that interest and enthusiasm into class. And we can really delve into some of their experiences. Even you know, some of the students who may have started their own business or have a part-time job can bring that into the classroom and we can use that for to build up understanding of the syllabus and some of the features of the course. Yeah, what else do I like about this course? Well, maybe the other thing that I was thinking of is just the real life applications to it. That , you know, we can take what's happening in the in the current news of current events and bring it into the classroom very easily.

Jon Peterson 10:27

Was there anything else that you wanted to share about the course that you think listeners or you know, or listeners are gonna be students, parents, teachers, wondering about this course. Maybe should I take it, should I teach it, should I prod my child to get to go take this course? What do you want to tell folks about it?

Brad Opfer 10:41

Well, I'm a big fan of really all the IB courses, , but I think this business management course is just an just yet another opportunity for students to pursue their interests and start thinking about you know possible career explorations and the next steps after post-secondary. And at the same time, it's just a great course as far as laying the foundation and making those connections to things like international mindedness or all the approaches to teaching and learning skills of things like communication, collaboration. Uh within the course, we talk about motivational theories. That's one section section of human resource management, and it just makes a natural connection for students to think about their own motivation and how they're motivated or not in their education and in their learning. So there's just a lot of natural connections that can be made that fits really nicely within the philosophy of the IV program.

Jon Peterson 11:42

That's great. Well, thanks, Brad, for being on with us today to help flesh out this whole idea of what this business management course is.

Brad Opfer 11:50

Uh thank you, John.

DP History

Jon Peterson 11:53

In this episode, we're describing the DP History course, and our teacher guide is Jim Jones. Uh so hi, Jim, and welcome to this series that we're doing on various courses. We're going to talk to you about the DP History course. Why don't you talk or tell us a little bit about your current role and what other DP courses you might be teaching?

James Jones 12:11

Uh sure. First of all, I'm really excited to have the opportunity to do this. I'm a big fan of the DP history course. Currently, I'm I teach DP economics, DP history, D in in TOK, but I'm also teaching MY, I'm MYP individuals and society courses as well. Let's just jump right into the highlights of the syllabus. For our particular history course, , you know, it's really set up so that the students are able to not just like, you know, learn the story of what happened and learn all the trivia throughout history, which , you know, is not unimportant. And frankly, as somebody who values history is is rather fun in my own mind. Uh, but it's really designed more that we we have these kind of practical, transferable skills. We help kids think critically. And so if we think, you know, specifically about what the goals of the course are, we're trying to get kids to become inquirers, to learn how to investigate, how to explore and evaluate different historical arguments and how to you know examine these various topics in a in a in a pretty deep way. So it's not really set up to be a broad view of, hey, we need to learn every single thing about every single topic. This is world history, it's it's not that kind of a setup. It is still a I I would argue a very rigorous course, but the rigor is more in its depth than it is its its breadth of knowledge. Um now that being said, the entire syllabus is quite broad, but those are options, those are choices that the schools and the teachers have to make when they're when they're presenting it. The course itself is kind of set up to be taught into these four different contexts, if you will. We have a focus study where we are kind of specifically assigned a couple of different case studies to investigate. And so these are chosen again by the school. Um for the focus study, we have the opportunity to explore climate and innovation, the challenges and effects those things have on the Norse and the Aztec. Uh we can look at the issue of independence and identity with the Haitian Revolution and Kenyan independence movements. We can look at political and economic transitions with the Meiji Restoration, the Russian Federation, conflict and displacement with post-war Europe and the Indochina refugee crisis, and protest and change, which looks at feminism in the U.S. and revolution in Tunisia. And I should also point out in the focus study, , I think one of the reasons that these are so specifically assigned is because it really, this this first context, as they call it, this first focus study is really about source analysis. And so having these specific things give us the opportunity to kind of be able to evaluate specific sources and and and and such along the way.

Jon Peterson 15:08

All right. All right. How about the thematic study?

James Jones 15:11

Yeah, so the thematic study is going to unsurprisingly focus on these themes, these I don't want to say the concept, because we also have our key concepts as well, but I mean they're just kind of these these bigger ideas. And this it really gives a lot of freedom and agency to the various schools, the various teachers to kind of bring in some of the their own topics that they want to look at. So if we look at the key themes here, like the the idea is that we have to select one of these. So we much like with the focus study, we have the option to choose. And so we get to look at themes like conflict, innovation and transformation, authoritarian rule, or popular movements. And so we choose one of those four topics, and from that we have to use at least two examples, two case studies to explore. And the key thing is there is that we choose two case studies to explore. That's where our freedom comes in. We have the opportunity to really study what is most appropriate for our schools context, , what's most interesting to us as teachers and our students even. I mean, there's room for our students to explore some of their own topics. I think that's the the direction we we are taking them in in my schools. We're gonna give them several examples, and then, you know, because over the course of this, you know, two-year course of study, the students are learning how to research, how to investigate, we're gonna set them up so that they can kind of investigate some of their own examples here as well. And, you know, within each of these themes, we have like some specific questions. So just as an example, , if we look at authoritarian rule, , there's gonna be four inquiry questions that we need to apply these to. So we're gonna look at why did authoritarian rule emerge? And so using at least two examples from different regions, we're we're gonna look at, okay, well, in the in the in this case, in the case of you know, Mussolini, , you know, the conditions were like this, , you know, and that's similar to how things were in , you know, Cuba with Castro or something like that, right? We can we can explore things in that in that way. Um and again, we're free to bring in whatever whatever case studies that we we feel are most appropriate for that. What do you do differently in HL for the history course? So for the HL students, they have an additional paper, the paper three, and that's going to focus on a regional study. And so this is something that, you know, it's it's it's again selected by the school. It's chosen. We have a choice of different regions here. We can look at either Africa and the Middle East, we can look at the Americas, we can look at Asia and Oceania, and we can look at Europe. And so we decide ahead of time which one of those units or regions we're gonna study. And then from there, we have within that region, we have you know, a total of 12 topics, and we choose two of those topics to really focus on. And across the regions, the the time period ranges from 750 CE right up to 2020. Um, and so really the history can get fairly recent here too. Uh, but over that span, it's not expected that we're that you know that we have covered every single one of those 12 topics, but within that we choose two of them.

Jon Peterson 18:35

Okay, sounds good. So now the historical investigation is is the internal assessment that goes with this. Again, listeners who are aware of IB's general format knows that each DP course has some form of internal assessment. Uh, why don't you talk about that in this in the history course?

James Jones 18:52

So the historical investigation is our internal assessment, and it is in some sense, it's a it's a research paper. Um, in the in that regard, it's not particularly unique. Students are gonna pick a topic, they're gonna form a question, they're gonna go out and investigate that topic, they're gonna find some resources. Hopefully, they're diving into you know the library, checking out databases online, that kind of thing. However, the format is maybe a little bit different. This is not just like a mini extended essay for history or or something like that. It really is gonna focus on things more conceptually. Uh students do have a lot of freedom in terms of their topic. There's no required topic here. So, you know, if a student doesn't want to study Europe in the First World War and look at conflict, you know, and they they'd they'd rather do something on civil rights movement or something like that, but it's not in our planned curriculum. This is their opportunity to explore that. So this gives them some freedom and some agency. Here, the the content isn't so much what's being assessed as the is the thinking, the understanding, the investigation, the you know, the research and analysis, that that sort of a thing. What happens here is it's essentially broken up into you know multiple parts. They are going to have to find at least, well, I should say at least, they're going to have to find seven sources that and and kind of explain how these sources demonstrate different perspectives of whatever the topic is that they're looking at. They need to be able to explain how these different perspectives are going to help them answer their inquiry question. And then they're going to synthesize those different perspectives and kind of evaluate, weigh the strengths and weaknesses of the various sources and their arguments to come up with some, you know, nice holistic answer that demonstrates critical thought and historical inquiry and help hopefully helps them find an answer to their inquiry question. So they need, I may have mentioned this, they need to do that in 2200 words.

Jon Peterson 20:55

All right. So let's move on to the actual examinations. Uh, why don't you describe those for students that are taking this course?

James Jones 21:03

Yeah, the different history papers. So again, if we're SL students, they're gonna be doing paper one and a paper two, as well as a historical investigation. And if they're HL, they're gonna be doing a paper one, a paper two, and a paper three.

Jon Peterson 21:15

Okay.

James Jones 21:16

And they are all kind of aligned with the different contexts that we described earlier. So if you think about the focus study where we're looking at analyzing different sources on these, you know, assigned case studies, , you know, North and Aztec for the for the climate one, for instance, , they're gonna be given a set of sources. They're gonna have three questions. The questions will always be the same, regardless of the topic, regardless of the year. They're gonna be the same questions. They're gonna have to explain the content of the sources, they're gonna have to analyze how the context of the sources kind of influence how it helps them answer an inquiry question that they've been given. And then they examine how the different perspectives can help them answer that inquiry. Question. It's kind of interesting because the focus is not actually answering the inquiry question, but rather on how the sources themselves will help them answer that inquiry question. Like you said earlier, understanding sources, in other words, evaluating sources is essentially what they're asked to do. Yeah, that's a real big takeaway, I think, from the from the history course.

Jon Peterson 22:18

Yeah.

James Jones 22:19

And then in paper two for their thematic study, this one, much like the content, is focused on kind of these these bigger themes. This is really focusing on on kind of a conceptual understanding of this. Um the students, as I mentioned, are are going to bring with them, not physically, they have to, you know, have these in in their minds at their disposal. They're going to have these kind of case studies that they're going to use to answer these questions. And they will have to first kind of explain, you know, a general historical concept. And so they'll draw from their examples to look at causes and consequences. And then from there, they're going to zoom in a little bit more on their themes. They're going to have a question directly related to the, you know, the theme of of conflict or whatever. And they're going to have to demonstrate that they have knowledge both of their example and how their example helps them understand the themes. So they're going to, you know, be synthesizing those examples together to answer, you know, a question on conflict or something.

Jon Peterson 23:20

And then just real briefly, let's just talk about how the HL, what their paper three's got. I think you said some things about it already.

James Jones 23:26

Yeah, the paper three, again, it's based on the regional study. And so, you know, it's it's based on region and and those various topics. Uh, I will say the paper three is probably the most typical history essay kind of a paper that you would expect. Uh you're given a prompt. You've got to, you know, write yourself a multi-paragraph essay here. Uh, and you have to do you have to do one from each of the topics that you've covered. They are all going to be based on these what we call to what extent questions. So it's really not just about tell us what you know. Uh it's not a narrative thing. It's about here's an argument, evaluate this argument. What are some different ways of looking at this argument? We got to see that critical evaluation of the argument in there. And that's , I think a really important thing, again, that kids take away is that there's not just the right answer, there's different ways of looking at these things, and different arguments , you know, some are stronger than others, and that's that's a crucial thing to learn.

Jon Peterson 24:24

Well, I think one of the things I really enjoy about IB in general, but history specifically, is that I think lay people should be selled, people that are not in the education directly, and especially not in IB education, think of history as days and dates, and you're only smart if you can remember, you know, the date of something. Uh and in fact, this, you know, anyone who's listened this far has figured out that this is way more sophisticated than that. And we can count on these students to go find those dates and times if they need them. But understanding the context and the actual way in which history is understood and written about and used it sometimes, is all much more important and and we'd be very happy to have students have this background as they leave and go out and make new history.

James Jones 25:09

That's absolutely true. But information is pretty cheap now, right? Like if we don't remember the date, I mean we can find it in in a matter of seconds. In fact, we did that, right? It's really more about how are we organizing our thoughts, how are we organizing our arguments, , what different ways can we look at these things? And so, like, if a student comes in to get help with that, I kind of that's that's what I tend to focus on more. That is, I would say, more important across the board, you know.

Jon Peterson 25:35

You want to address what you love about teaching the course and any final comments holistically?

James Jones 25:40

I I think what I love about this course is is it's really what I love about history. You know, my background is in history. I studied history, and I didn't study history so I could do really good at trivia night. You know, like I didn't study history just so I knew everything. History is not just about telling story. I mean, some people do, some people argue that's that's the point, is that you learn like your national narrative and it's all to me, history is about thinking critically. It's about searching for the truth, trying to understand how we know that this is truth. And I think we were surrounded with AI that is often wrong. We are surrounded with social media that has misinformation and disinformation. You know, there's conscious efforts to manipulate the information that's coming. History is not just about learning about, oh, you know, when did World War II start? It's not about that. It's about looking for lessons from the past that we can apply to the experiences we have now, you know, and it's looking at the statements that are being made, claims that are being made, and determining, you know, how confident are we that those statements are true? And I think history is the perfect vehicle to do that. And I think it's valuable for anybody, regardless of what direction they're going in, you know. Well, good.

Jon Peterson 26:52

Well, thanks so much, Jim, for for taking the time to give us a an overview of this course, and I look forward to speaking to you again. Uh anytime, John. I really enjoyed it.

DP Economics

Jon Peterson 27:04

Hi, folks. Welcome back to IB Matters. And we are describing the Diploma Program Economics course today, and our teacher guide is Jim Jones. And Jim, why don't you introduce yourself, say hello, and our listeners will recognize your voice from if from other group three subject history. But tell us about your connection to the economics course.

James Jones 27:26

Sure. Well, I'm a teacher at the International Academy Macomb, which is in Michigan, a little north of Detroit, and we're IB Magnet School. Uh I've been there for about 16 or 17 years now, and half of that time I've been the the full-time economics teacher. I also teach history and T OK on occasion, depending on the schedule. Um, and in addition to that, I'm also an IBIN member and do workshops and site visits, and I'm an MYP coordinator. So I've got I got a lot going on with IB.

Jon Peterson 28:00

Yeah, and that's where I met you. You came to Minnesota to do a history workshop, , an IB official training. So thanks for doing this. Um let's just jump right in. Why don't you talk about the economics course and and kind of what it's overview and and a little review of the syllabus, and then we'll talk about some of the details of what kids need to learn.

James Jones 28:18

All right. Well, the IB economics course is , as most IB courses, it's a two-year course, and it's focused on developing an understanding of the various economic theories and models and ideas and tools that are used throughout the field. Um, your kind of the the goal is that the students will have an understanding of these ideas and they will then apply them in real-world scenarios, and that hopefully by doing this, they'll develop kind of a consent conceptual grounding in terms of how individuals and societies function, why they make the decisions they do, you know, the various challenges that come along with that.

Jon Peterson 29:01

Yeah, okay, cool. So let's go ahead and jump into the syllabus then. How do they accomplish that?

James Jones 29:07

So the syllabus is focused on these nine key concepts. And while I won't list them all here right now, you can find them in the guide. Um, you know, these include things like scarcity and economic well-being and interdependence and intervention, and they do that , you know, over the two-year period, and it's broken up into kind of four sections. Um, you start with a kind of a brief foundations unit, which gives you an overview of just basic economic thought, what is economics, how do economists approach the world, and so on. Uh from there, you get into microeconomics where we start to explore how markets work, we look at the basics of supply and demand, and we start to figure out how do consumers and producers make choices, and you know, why, you know, what happens if a if if a market doesn't necessarily satisfy those needs? Um, you know, does government intervention help? When does government intervention help? And so on. From there we get into macroeconomics, and that's where we kind of zoom out from the individual markets and products and firms and start looking more at the national level, where you start to see bigger ideas like unemployment or inflation or productivity. Um, and here we kind of explore how economic activity can vary over time, how we measure the , I suppose, effectiveness of an economy, and how governments manage these things and meet their meet their goals. Finally, the last section is on the global economy. So we kind of zoom out one more time here and look at it more on an international level. And here we start to explore things like trade integration. Uh, so we you know, we start to see, well, what are tariffs? How do they work? When might they be appropriate? When might they not be appropriate? You know, who are the winners and losers of trade? Um why are some countries developing much faster and much you know better than others? Um, what does it take for a country to improve its development? You know, over the two years, it gives a pretty good grounding in the in the basics of , you know, it's it's a great way to start an exploration of economics. But beyond that, I mean, even if that's not your you know, your path in life, that gives you a really good understanding of really how the world works. Yeah, right.

Jon Peterson 31:30

I'm sure our listeners, wherever they are and whenever they're listening to this, they could think of this morning's paper, and they're probably going to see a lot of examples of of everyday applications or at least the effects of the economic policies that are happening.

James Jones 31:44

They absolutely will, and that's an important part of the course that it's explicitly integrated in the course that you know students should be looking for these real-world examples and not just learning the this theory in a vacuum, but rather applying it to what they're seeing, you know, throughout the throughout the news.

Jon Peterson 32:02

Yeah.

James Jones 32:02

Yeah, as a as a teacher in the United States, we are making plenty of real world examples right now that we can explore. Um, however, it's encouraged because again, we are the international baccalaureate organization here. We're we're looking for examples, not just in our in our local areas, but rather around the world. Because, you know, it truly is a an international science. What happens here absolutely influences places on the other side of the globe.

Jon Peterson 32:28

And one of the best things about IB that I've felt since I've been involved is the idea of imagining different perspectives or or applying different perspectives. And and you can certainly, you know, take yourself and put yourself on the other side of the coin and and think about how it affects you versus how it affects the persons that are being you know applied pressure to, you know.

James Jones 32:49

Yeah, that's but that's part of what we what we do here in the course is explore those different perspectives and how you know different stakeholders are affected by these various policies and things that we're exploring.

Jon Peterson 32:59

Cool. So how does the student how are we assessing students on in economics?

James Jones 33:04

I I guess I would start with just the the the basic papers here. You have for you know SL and HL students, we have a paper one and a paper two. And a paper one is an essay-based exam. Uh students are given three questions, each of which have a part A and a part B, and they choose one of those three questions to answer. Part A is a 10-mark essay, and they're gonna need to explain and demonstrate how economic theory works in some particular context, and they'll be expected to draw some diagrams and you know, give a pretty detailed account of the workings of the theory behind whatever it is that they're exploring. Um, and then the part B essay, they might have to do that a little bit more, but they also have to kind of support this with some of those real-world examples we were just talking about. And they also have to demonstrate a lot of critical thinking here. They have to be very evaluative in the response. So, as you mentioned, like looking at different perspectives is a part of that, looking at you know, conditions when you know a certain policy may be effective or when it may not be is also a part of it. But it's not so much just answering, oh, this is what theory says should happen. Yeah, that's that's a part of this. We got to go a little bit further and kind of get into the how and why it might work and when it might work and when it might not, and so on. Yeah, that's paper one. Uh, paper two, I I should say all of these papers really draw on the same skills to some extent. Uh, you have to be able to clearly explain theory. I I say economics is really about clarity and precision in your explanations, that's a key thing. And we see that a bit with paper two, , as it also ends with like a 15-mark essay where you have to explain theory and you have to , you know, evaluate, demonstrate critical thinking. But part two also, or rather, paper two also has several other questions throughout it. And these are they follow a pretty standard pattern. You start with some kind of basic definition or identification questions. Um, you might end up with a few calculation questions. And I should point out math is an important part of the course, but the math in this course is not, you know, this is this is not HL math by any means. Any anyone in any math class should be able to handle this. Yeah. Um, so you might have a few calculation questions, then you have a series of diagram and explain questions where the students will have to draw a diagram and then to demonstrate some you know economic issue, , and then they'll have to explain what's going on. And then it ends with the 15-mark essay. And what distinguishes this from paper one is that here, instead of students bringing in their own real-world examples, they are given a case study. So they will have you know a couple of readings based on a certain issue in a certain country. Uh, they may be given some data, and they really are supposed to be referencing back to that data throughout this , you know, essay rather than bringing their own, you know, case studies into it.

Jon Peterson 35:57

You know, so they have to have some background knowledge as well, but they bring that background knowledge into the context of the new case study.

James Jones 36:04

That's correct. Here it's about applying you know the knowledge they have about the economics to some you know specified given case study rather than being able to just bring in their own things.

Jon Peterson 36:14

And then the the students doing HL have a paper three?

James Jones 36:17

They do have a paper three. Uh this this consists of two you know big questions. Uh the students are required to answer both of them. Uh so they don't they don't have the choice here that they have in both paper one and paper two. They have to answer both of them. A lot of these questions are short-answer questions. You might have , you know, occasional explanation question, , but a lot of it's also quite more quantitative based. So you've got a bit more math in the HL level. Uh still largely just algebra, , but there's just more that you have to apply here. And in paper three, you get a lot of that. Um, and you might be calculating some data, you might be plotting points on a on a diagram. Uh, in paper three, , each of these questions ends with a 10-mark essay. And this essay is a little different than the previous two. Uh, still draws on the same skills. You have to be clear, you should be precise, , you got to think critically. But here, instead of like applying and explaining specific theories, you you're really focused on you're you're playing the role of policymaker. Here in paper three, they're gonna ask you to suggest a policy to accomplish some particular goal. That's the that's the prompt for paper three.

Jon Peterson 37:25

Every IB diploma course has an internal assessment that is done in the class with the teacher. What are the students doing for IAs or as we call them in you know, IAs internal assessments?

James Jones 37:35

Yeah, I actually really like the internal assessment for this course because it spans the you know entirety of the course. Um, it's actually a portfolio that they'll submit, portfolio of article commentaries. And so the basic task is students will find some real-world examples in the news, much like you mentioned earlier. They're gonna be pouring through the newspapers or and they will need to apply some economic theory that they have been given. They're gonna have to evaluate much like they did in paper one or paper two and so on. Uh, and they're they're going to draw it on some specific, you know, news story that they have come across that fits into what we've been discussing in the curriculum. And students are required to do three of these: one for their microeconomics, one for macroeconomics, and one for their global economics section. They're 800-word commentaries. And I gotta say, students often have a hard time squeezing everything in into those 800 words. Once they they trim the fat, so to speak, it usually gets down pretty good.

Jon Peterson 38:38

It's ironic, and and it's a repeatable thing I've seen in IB courses is students hear about a an 800-word essay or a 1200-word essay, and at first it seems daunting, and then at the end they're trying to, you know, like you said, in you know, implement more clarity and precision and get down to what the meat of it. And and that's kind of something that that students from IB courses tend to walk away with. And we hear a lot about from from their you know college professors and such is how well written, how how well they write.

James Jones 39:05

And oh, absolutely, absolutely. And this is no exception. And I will say it's difficult for me, having come, you know, my background is in history and writing's a big part of that. Here it's it's a lot, you know, we should always be clear and precise in our writing, but it's really I think it's really good practice in economics and kind of trimming away some of the stuff you don't need and focusing on what you really do.

Jon Peterson 39:25

Yeah, it kind of connects with your own personal budget.

James Jones 39:27

Yes, absolutely.

Jon Peterson 39:28

Let's trim it away. Um, let's talk a little bit about the affective side. What do you love about this course and what do you see as kind of the transferable skills that students walk away with?

James Jones 39:38

Well, the transferable skills, one we just talked about that clarity and precision in your writing is important, but just technical writing in general, , making clear arguments, , demonstrating, you know, critical thinking within those arguments, and and also , you know, that exploration of different perspectives. Now, these are not in you know unique to economics. I do those when we teach history as well. These go much beyond just your courses at school. These are these are you know skills that employers will seek out from you in the future, there's skills that will help you through college and so on. Um, I also really appreciate its connection to the real world. Yeah, , again, we're not learning theory in a vacuum here. If you are learning theory in a vacuum, you're you're you're doing it wrong. We're not just arguing, you know, philosophy here. We're looking at how, you know, what is going on in the world, why is this happening? Why are countries making the choices that they are? Um, are the choices they're making good? Uh are they bad? Well usually it's not one or the other. Usually there's a mix, right? Are the benefits worth the cost? That's you know, that's the kind of thing that we start to explore here. And I think that's that's really important for , again, not just school, but for life in general.

Jon Peterson 40:48

Yeah. Oh, cool. Um, do you have any final thoughts or or recommendations or things you'd like to say to people when they think about the economics course?

James Jones 40:55

I think economics fits, not just if you're going into finance or business or something like that. Economics helps us understand, you know, how societies function. And that is important no matter what the field is that you're in. And so, you know, I would encourage everybody to take a take a look at economics. It's it's you know, it's a fascinating course. And you know, with all the transferable skills and transferable knowledge, I I think, you know, it may not be for everybody, but anyone could benefit.

Jon Peterson 41:24

Well, thanks, James. I really appreciate your time today, and , I hope folks have learned what they need to know about economics, and and this will be part of the group three course portfolio. So thanks.

James Jones 41:34

Yep, thanks for having me, John.

Jon Peterson 41:37

Thanks for listening. Please check out the show notes for links, including the two-page subject briefs, which lay out more detailed information about the syllabus and the assessment structures for these courses. There may be other links provided by our teacher guides depending on the episode. For an up to date list of the available DP and CP course descriptions, go to our dedicated website linked in the show notes.