Dear all

For many, this is the start of a new academic year, with the final cohort of students embarking on the outgoing Business Management syllabus (and the last two cohorts to sit the CUEGIS essays in M23 and N23(!)

May 2023 Exams

Regarding the M23 (and N23) exams, as there are some schools yet to start the 2021/22 academic year (w/n 6th Sept), the IB (for now) has no reason to make any amendments to the exams for DP1 candidates taking exams in May 2023.

The official stance is M23 and N23 will (for now) have both Section C contained in Paper 1 (HL) and Paper 2 (CUEGIS for SL and HL). However, the IB is continually monitoring this situation and will, as in the past two years, make a judgement call if/when the data are available to justify any such decision.

The pragmatic solution is to introduce CUEGIS (the concepts are featured throughout the syllabus, e.g. "How cultural differences and innovation may impact on communication" in Unit 2.2). There is no need to focus on the actual CUEGIS essay (Paper 2 Section C) within the first 3 months or so anyway, by which time we may know more from the IB.

Updates and notifications

Some of the updates to the InThinking Business Management website that you might be interested in are outlined below.

Would you have stood 828 metres above ground level to star in a 30-sec advert? What might motivate someone to do this beyond money and recognition? Financial & non-financial rewards: impact on job satisfaction, motivation & productivity in different cultures

Do you know your generic trademarks (such as Coke) from your generic products (such as cola)? Have a look at this newly added case study to find out: Aspects of branding

Are you aware of the changes to the TOK course, and in particular the 12 new concepts now used in the TOK course? Take a look here, with some suggestions about integrating these into the T&L of Business Management: TOK & BM

Finally, most of the updates this month have focused on the Megamin Mining Paper 1 case study for Nov centres: Nov 2021 (Megamin Mining)

These updates include a set of 10 Activities to engage students in the learning and understanding of the case study, as well as exam practice question for all five Units of the syllabus.

Staff training opportunities

It's a busy year ahead for the InThinking team, with lots of new professional development events for IB teachers, including three scheduled upskilling training sessions for the new syllabus (first teaching Sept 2022). Please take a look at the InThinking BM Teacher Support Group on Facebook for further details of these opportunities: https://www.facebook.com/groups/958483097945195/posts/1265623313897837/

Resources for teaching Business Management

With the start of a new academic year for most teachers in the IB World, many people have been asking about recommended resources for the Business Management course. Please take a look at this Padlet for suggestions that might be of interest to you: https://padlet.com/paulhoang88/zi1zk21159at0ten

At the time of writing, there are 912 IB teachers & 4,604 students across 90 countries using InThinking Business Management. The stats show that you're spending an average of 3 hours 51 mins on the website, which now has content exceeeding 574,000 words (that's about 143 Extended Essay!) Your ongoing support is very much appreciated.

Please remember that you can activate Student Access for free, so all of your students are able to use InThinking too, including Smart Quizzes and tasks you can set from the qBank for your classes. The only teacher-secured section of the website is the Exam Papers sections for Paper 1 and Paper 2.

Wishing you all the best for the extremely busy month ahead!

Paul