Student Text Features

The World of Business Student Book has been designed to help students achieve the requirements of the Ontario Grade 9/10, Introduction to Business course (BBI10/BBI20). Coverage of the content strands for Introduction to Business-The Role and Impact of Business; Conducting Business in a Competitive Marketplace and in the Changing Workplace; Personal Finance; Entrepreneurship; and International Business, Ethical Issues, and Career Opportunities is thorough and is embedded in the narrative. For ease of use, The World of Business is organized in five units that reflect these strands: The Role of Business, Doing Business In Canada, Personal Finance, Entrepreneurship, and International Business. Features entitled "Career Focus" and "Issues Affecting Business" appear throughout the text.

KEY FEATURES

• Profiles at the opening of each unit showcase information about an individual whose business activities reflect the main ideas of the chapter. Unit openers also include the learning goals for the unit (the Ontario curriculum expectations written in student-friendly language) and visual images that capture key issues and events.

• The Before You Begin box that opens each chapter is designed to pique students' interest, build on their prior knowledge, and/or engage them in discussion about what they will be reading. The content of this feature relates to the expectations that will be dealt with in depth in the chapter, the opening paragraph of the unit, and the end of the chapter.

• Magazine-style quotes throughout the chapter highlight and reinforce key concepts from the text, drawing attention to interesting facts and prompting thinking and discussion.

• Business Fact boxes provide interesting statistical data about the world of business. Other interesting business information is presented in Did You Know? boxes. Both features direct the students' attention to the consideration of real world situations.

• Questions and Activities appear throughout the chapter. Where multiple questions or activities appear (for example at the end of a profile), they are organized in ascending order from lower to higher order thinking skills.

• The Stretch Your Thinking boxes help students to develop their critical- and creative-thinking skills, and skills of inquiry.

The ICE approach
Several times in each chapter, students will come upon question and activity charts for Information, Connection, and Extension. The ICE approach provides a framework for teaching and assessment that emphasizes depth of learning. Using the ICE framework, teachers can give students the specific feedback and select the instructional tasks they need to extend students' learning along the learning continuum.

• Information
  Information is fundamental to learning. The questions and activities in this column ask students to examine and recall steps in a process, vocabulary/definitions, basic facts, and/or details from the chapter.
  
• Connections
  Connections occur when relationships among ideas or pieces of information are established and articulated by the learner. Students can explain how the ideas are connected and also make connections to previous knowledge.
  
• Extensions
  Extensions are the final stage of growth. The learner internalizes the learning, uses it in novel ways, and no longer needs to refer to the rules for operation or make conscious connections. They can answer the questions: So, what does this mean? How does it apply to my world?

The ICE framework can help teachers determine where along the learning continuum the students are performing. With that information, teachers can plan instruction to meet their learning needs. For example, during discussions, teachers can choose questions for all three levels of development, or design their own, using starters such as the following.

In The World of Business, 4th Edition, the ICE approach is used as a model for structuring student activities. Activities in the Information column promote content recall. The Connection column involves students in making connections with the real world and with other parts of The World of Business. In the Extension section, higher order thinking skills are emphasized. Students are asked to extend their learning in original and creative ways, sometimes beyond the classroom. It is important that students become familiar with the different kinds of activities and the expectations that accompany them.

• Review pages - At the end of each chapter, Review pages are closely tied to the categories of the "Achievement Chart-Grades 9-10, Business Studies." Sets of questions and activities guide students to review and practise their knowledge of important facts and terms covered in the chapter; their understanding of concepts, principles, and theories; and their understanding of relationships between concepts. Knowledge and Understanding activities review basic terminology, concepts and ideas in the chapter. Thinking and Inquiry activities require students to collect, analyse, interpret, and form conclusions about information. Communication activities focus on teaching students to communicate information and ideas in oral and written forms. Application activities give students opportunities to apply concepts, skills, and procedures in familiar contexts; to transfer concepts, skills, and procedures to new contexts; to make logical conclusions and generalizations; to make predictions and plan courses of action; to use technology, equipment, and materials; and to make connections effectively.

•  Figures are used throughout the text to present data in visual forms: the photographs, art, graphs, and tables in The World of Business will help students understand the nature and role of business.

•  Key terms and technical terms are bolded in the text of the chapters and defined in the Glossary, which appears at the end of The World of Business for ease of reference.

• Contemporary Issues in Canadian Business
Using a Point/Counterpoint format, both sides of a particular business-related issue are presented ask questions. A real life example is described and students are directed to questions and activities that explore the issue in greater depth.

• Career Focus
In every unit, students are provided with opportunities to expand their knowledge of a variety of careers, to increase their understanding of the educational and personal demands of different careers, and to reflect on their own skills and potential choices.

• E-Activities in each chapter are designed to help students use the Internet effectively to research business topics. The activities are focused on Grade 9/10 Ontario Business Studies curriculum content expectations, and on the principles of multiple intelligences, cooperative and independent learning strategies, and critical-thinking, inquiry, and communications skills. The questions in The World of Business are only the first step for students. At the Business website, they will find further notes on each activity. These notes open with focus questions that will start students thinking about the learning goals of the activity, that set the purpose for their research, and that are firmly rooted in the expectations from the Grade 9/10 Ontario Business Studies curriculum.
The notes at the website clearly integrate the Internet research activity with chapter topics, concepts, and skills, and contain references to pertinent sections of the chapter and its features. Students are given specific research questions to get them started and detailed descriptions of the process and/or product of the activity. The embedded Internet links take students to specific pages on the site, which are directly related to the activity.