HSC Business Studies - an elective subject - 120 indicative hours



  

 Source: Based on the Business Studies Stage 6 Syllabus - pp 19-26 - Board of Studies NSW

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About Literacy

Literacy

What is it ?
According to UNESCO (2013), literacy refers to the ability to identify, think, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute of using visual connections and/or printed and written materials associated with varying contexts.

From a similar perspective, the ACT Government (2013) cited MCEETYA’s definition of Literacy:

Literacy is the ability to read and write; and use written information to write appropriately in a range of contexts. It also involves the integration of speaking, listening, viewing and critical thinking with reading and writing, and includes the cultural knowledge which enables a speaker, writer or reader to recognise and use language appropriate to different social situations.

Why does Literacy matter ?
UNESCO affirms that

Literacy is a fundamental human right and the foundation for lifelong learning. It is fully essential to social and human development in its ability to transform lives. For individuals, families, and societies alike, it is an instrument of empowerment to improve one’s health, one’s income, and one’s relationship with the world.

How to measure its performance in practice

Illustrating, proving, practising, and presenting skills in: Reading texts, verbal/visual/written communications, working with others, technology use, thinking and continuous learning.

Types of Literacy

Functional literacy (Emotional/ Financial/ Physical/ Spiritual Literacy)	The level of literacy required to get along successfully on a day-to-day basis
Cultural Literacy	The ability to understand and appreciate the similarities and differences in the customs, values, and beliefs of one's own culture, and the cultures of others.
Multicultural Literacy	Knowledge of cultures and languages, as well as the ways in which multi-sensory data (text, sound, and graphics) may introduce slant, perspective, and bias into language, subject matter, and visual content.
Information Literacy	The ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand.
Media Literacy	An informed, critical understanding of the mass media
Multi-literacy	Knowing how to read, write, understand, think, and communicate in two or more languages
Visual Literacy	The ability to understand and produce visual messages
Computer Literacy	The ability to use a computer and its software to accomplish practical tasks
Key Learning Area (KLA)Literacy	A mastery of the basic symbols and processes of terminologies in this KLA For example: Mathematical Literacy refers to a mastery of the basic symbols and processes of arithmetic.
Technological and Digital literacy	The ability to use new media such as the Internet to access and communicate information effectively; and  involving the new tools of hypertext, multimedia and electronic forms of synchronous and asynchronous communication
Business Literacy	Understanding the interdependence among people and nations and having the ability to interact and collaborate successfully across cultures and businesses
Multidimensional Literacy	Knowing how to read, write, understand, think, and communicate in multi KLAs

References
The ACT Government (2013). Literacy. Retrieved 10 October 2013 from http://www.det.act.gov.au/teaching_and_learning/literacy_and_numeracy/literacy

UNESCO (2013). Education-Literacy. Retrieved 10 October 2013 from
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/education-building-blocks/literacy/

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About Nominalisation

Nominalisation

What is it?

Understanding the concept of nominalisation and a process of making /producing a noun, from a verb or an adjective, or an adverb, is interesting. Referring a definition, on its webpage, the About Education states that 'Nominalisation is a type of word formation in which a verb is used as, or transformed into a noun.'
In other words, nominalisation refers to a writing technique or the writing tool of using noun phrases instead of verb phrases. This technique requires the writers to change verbs (actions) into nouns (things or concepts) in their writing. 

Why does nominalisation matter?

According to Murray (2013), nominalisation is an important tool for building taxonomies of technical terms; therefore, nominalisations are important resources in building knowledge. Implementing nominalisation prevents you from repeating the same verb or word in writing that makes the content being more attractive for readers. This preference technique is required in academic writing such as formal essays and/or written business communication. Importantly, nominalisations help construct technical knowledge, and place objects and events into different relations with one another from those of our everyday experiences of the world (Murray, 2013).

Nominalisation is one of the language choices that enables movement towards highly written texts (The Government of South Australia, 2013). Implementing nominalisation develops thinking skills and helps achieve a higher degree of abstraction and technicality; nominalisation also is an important resource for successful development of factual genres.

How are nominalisations formed?

Part 1- Nominalisations are often formed from Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs

a)      Verbs:

             -Many verbs can be changed into nominalisations by changing the end of the verb

                                 permit      --        permission

                                 divide      --        division

             -Some do not need change

                                 diet         --          [my] diet

                             struggle      --           the struggle

b)      Adjective:

                                pretty       --          beauty

c)      Adverb

                                quietly     --           silence

Part 2-Instructions: 

Forming nominalisation: in a text, a procedure of steps is as below.           Step1: Identify the verbs           Step2: Nominalise the verbs are identified above           Step3: Try to rewrite the text using all nominalisations

For example, in giving an original text of “Students who complete what the school requires can graduate. When they receive their certificate, they can apply for work.",  a procedure of the above steps, to change verbs into nominalisations, is as follows.

Step 1: Identify the verbs in the original text

Students who complete what the school requires can graduate. When they receive their certificate, they can apply for work.

Step 2 Nominalise these verbs

•         Complete     --      Completion

•         Require        --      Requirement

•         Graduate      --      Graduation

•         Receive        --      Receipt

•         Apply           --      Application

Step 3:Try to rewrite the text using all nominalisations

With the nominalisations finding in Step 2, a new text will be rewritten as below.
Completion of the school’s requirements can lead to graduation. Upon receipt of their certificate, students can make an application for work.

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Sources: Adapted from
-Chirstine Murray: Developing subject literacy. UTS handout week5-Spring 2013
-The Government of South Australia-Department of Education and Children’s Services (2013). Literacy Secretariat. Literacy is everyone’s business 

Useful links: 1  2  3  4  5  6   7

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Literacy Teaching Technique: Skeleton Text

Skeleton Text
Part 1

Prediction Activity

A Skeleton Text - What is it?

Source: Adapted from Christine Murray - UTS handout week4 Spring 2013

 

It refers to the text that shows the overall outline of a text but has key pieces of information missing.

For the literacy activity, students are asked to predict what they think this information might be.

For example, a skeleton text contains only the first and the last paragraph, and the words that signal the key information that the teacher wants students to achieve/learn.

To draw whole picture for the text, it requires students having enough knowledge of the topic to be able to make specific suggestions about topic’s content.

In literacy teaching of reading and writing, the aim of using the skeleton text is to engage students in reading the text, not have them produce “correct answers”. The activity is an opportunity for the teacher to model some of language/literacy in his/her Key Learning Area/s.

 

Read more information on Literacy Teaching

Relevant link: Teaching Strategies 

Just-in-Time Teaching

JiTT Version 1

Just-in-Time Teaching - What it is

Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) refers to a pedagogical strategy that uses feedback between classroom activities and work that students do at home in preparation for the actual classroom activities. By preparing at home and with ideas bringing from that preparation, the aims of JiTT are to increase learning and thinking during learning sessions, to enhance student motivation, to encourage students to prepare for class, and allow the teacher to effectively conduct the classroom activities towards best meet students’ needs (Wikipedia, 2013)

In addition, according to the Carleton College (2013), JiTT focuses on improving student learning through the use of brief  questions (JiTT activities) delivered before a face-to-face class that these are prepared at home. Going into the class, Students' responses to JiTT exercises are reviewed by the teacher a short time before learning session and are used to develop classroom activities addressing learning gaps revealed in the JiTT responses. JiTT exercises/questions/activities allow the teacher to quickly gather information about student understanding of content concepts immediately prior to a face-to-face class and tailor activities to meet students' actual learning needs.

Advantages To improving student learning and increasing in-class teaching efficiency and effectiveness through: getting students' preparation for class engaging and enhancing student motivation for learning promoting ongoing formative assessment of student learning informing in-class activities that target student learning gaps connecting Out-of-Class and In-Class

Disadvantages Pre-class Preparation requires time, knowledge and skills that not all students and class teachers to commit themselves to doing so.

Sources and References

Carleton College (2013). What is Just-in-Time Teaching?. Retrieved 29 September from

         http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/justintime/what.html

Wikipedia (2013). Just in Time Teaching. Retrieved 29 September 2013 from

         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_in_Time_Teaching

About Assessment

About Assessment

Referring to the Standards Referenced Assessment, the Board of Studies NSW (2011) requires that the assessment measures students’ performance throughout the whole course rather than at a single point in time.  HSC Business Studies is a two unit ATAR course. This suggests that students can expect approximately three to five assessment tasks for this course.

Type		Diagnostic assessment [Prior to instruction] understand students’ knowledge and skills	Formative assessment Assessment For Learning		Summative assessment Assessment Of Learning
What	It refers to the gathering and careful evaluation of detailed data to understand students’ knowledge and skills in a given learning area.		It refers to the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there	It refers to the process of communicating information about student achievement and progress gained from the assessment process is typically referred to as ‘assessment of learning’. Teachers use the information gathered from ‘assessment for learning’ to summarise student achievement. Generally schools do this in written report to parents.
When		at the beginning of a unit of study	during learning sessions, during day to day learning experiences		at the end of unit, project, semester, year or course
Why		This allows teacher to assess the skills, abilities, interests, experiences, levels of achievement or difficulties of an individual student or a whole class	This is the practice of building a cumulative record of student achievement and involves ongoing, informal observations throughout the learning unit, term semester or course		This assists teacher to make judgements about student achievement at certain relevant points in the learning process or unit of study
How		• can involve formal measurements ( IQ/ aptitude tests, fitness tests) that are used to establish a starting point or baseline OR informal measurements observation, discussions, questioning) • informs programming and planning, and learning and teaching methods used, as well as assessment choices	• is used to monitor students’ ongoing progress and to provide immediate and meaningful feedback • assists teachers in modifying or extending their programmes or adapting their learning and teaching methods •This can be formal or informal assessment Informal assessment: • systematically observing and monitoring students during in class learning and teaching experiences • interacting with students to gain a deeper knowledge of what they know, understand and can do • circulating the classroom and posing questions, guiding investigations, motivating and quizzing students • providing opportunities for students to present or report upon their learning and teaching experiences • collecting, analysing, and providing feedback[(verbal or written] on in and out of class work samples		• can be used formally to measure the level of achievement of learning outcomes: - tests, assignments, projects, presentations and so forth · • can also be used to judge programme, teaching and/or unit of study effectiveness - that is as a form of evaluation.

 hsc Business studies assessment overview
Source: from Len Nixon–Commercial Studies 2013, p4-UTS handouts week1–Spring2013

Topic	Knowledge and Understanding Outcomes						Skills Outcomes
	H1	H2	H3	H4	H5	H6	H7	H8	H9	H10
Operations	√	√ AssessTask1	√ AssessTask1	√ AssessTask1	√ AssessTask1	√ AssessTask1	√ AssessTask1	√ AssessTask1	√ AssessTask1
Marketing	√	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3
Finance		√ AssessTask2	√	√ AssessTask2	√ AssessTask2	√ AssessTask2	√ AssessTask2	√ AssessTask2	√ AssessTask2	√ AssessTask2
Human Resources		√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3	√ AssessTask3

 

Notes    √ refers to Outcomes addressed in topic   Task4 HSC Trial is not mapped, it assesses all outcomes

Hsc business studies

assessment components and weightings

Source: Adapted from Len Nixon–Commercial Studies 2013 - UTS handouts week1–Spring2013

Board of Studies Suggested Requirements
Task Day	Term4 20X0 Week9	Term1 20X1 Week10	Term2 20X1 Week9	Term3 20X1 Week3
Syllabus Content Requirements	Operations	Finance	Human resources & marketing	All Topic
Task Type	Case Studies Research&5’Oral Presentation	Calculations & Business Report	Prepared before but written in class extended responses	Examination HSC Trial
Outcomes	H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, H8, H9	H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, H8, H9,H10	H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, H8, H9	H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, H8, H9,H10
Assessment Component	Task1	Task2	Task3	Task4	Weight
Knowledge and understanding of course content	5	10	10	15	40
Stimulus-based skills	5	5	5	5	20
Inquiry and research	5	5	5	5	20
Communication of business information, ideas and issues in appropriate forms	5	5	5	5	20
Total	20	25	25	30	100

 
 

References

Nixon, L. (2013). Commerce Studies 2013- HSC Business Studies Teaching Program – Handouts week 1. UTS Spring 2013

NSW Board of Studies (2011). HSC assessment in a standards-referenced framework. A guide to best practice. Published by the Board of Studies NSW. Australia –Sydney

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