As a provider of business education resources, we hear from many teachers like you who are frustrated that they can’t find quality lesson plans for business management. You need to cover management as part of your business curriculum, but finding resources to meet your standards and engage your learners may leave you scrambling.
To help you find the resources you need so you can get back to teaching, we’ve brought together the top five places to find business management lesson plans for high school:
- Business Management Activity Bundle from Business Girl
- How to Manage a Business Lesson by Debby Garcia
- Business Management Curriculum from Texas CTE
- Business Management Lesson Plans from Mr. George’s Academics
- Knowledge@Wharton High School
In this post, you’ll find out more about each business management teaching resource, along with information to help you decide if one or more of these plans is the right fit for your classroom.
Related Resource:
1. Business Management Activity Bundle from Business Girl
Business Girl is a well-known publisher on the Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) online education marketplace.
This business teacher has more than 230 products available on TpT, including a bundle of activities to teach business management.
The bundle costs $14.49 and includes eight of Business Girl’s most popular resources about business management:
- Business Management Terminology QR Code Scavenger Hunt
- Business Management Functions Script Project
- Business Management Theories Museum Exhibit Project
- Motivational Techniques for Managers
- Business Management / Supervisory Skills Gallery Walk
- Business Leadership QR Code Scavenger Hunt
- Business Leaders in Management Editorial Project
- Business Management Scenarios Advice Column Project
Together, these activities will fill a week’s worth of classes while helping you teach basic management concepts, including terminology, functions, theories, and skills.
This activity bundle is an excellent option for any teacher looking for engaging supplemental resources to break up their everyday management lessons.
However, these lessons may not be the best choice if you are looking for more robust lesson plans or a resource you can use for free. Independent lessons also lack some of the continuity you could get from a more extended business management curriculum.
2. How to Manage a Business Lesson by Debbie Garcia
Debbie Garcia is a veteran business teacher and contributing member to CTE Online — a free community where CTE teachers can find projects, lesson plans, and other resources.
As a member of the CTE Online community, Debbie has shared a number of lesson plans to help other business teachers in the classroom.
One of her most popular lesson plans is How to Manage a Business.
The main objectives of the lesson are to help students:
- Understand and identify the management structures a business can adopt
- Identify their individual skills and knowledge needed to be an effective manager
- Understand that business management is the use and coordination of all resources in a business
To accomplish these objectives, Debbie Garcia organizes her lesson plan into five steps. Each step includes activities for students to understand different facets of business management better.
The five steps of the How to Manage a Business Lesson are:
- Leadership Activity: A team-building activity where students discuss the qualities of a good leader.
- Lecture on Management: A teacher-led lesson on the four functions of management, planning, organizing, directing, and controlling.
- Check Student Understanding: Use essay prompts to check comprehension of the concepts you’ve taught so far.
- Group Work: Students team up to role-play scenarios, such as a warehouse fire or a conflict between employees.
- Formative Assessment: Learners answer six questions on a worksheet that evaluate what they’ve learned during the entire lesson.
Overall, the How to Manage a Business lesson is a great way to teach management basics with various teaching strategies.
The only downside is that you’ll need to make an account with CTE Online to use these materials. However, creating an account is free and gives you access to the entire library of materials available from CTE Online.
3. Business Management Curriculum from Texas CTE
In Texas, career and technical education programs are held accountable by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). It is the responsibility of the TEA to ensure that Texas high schools are following the state’s course standards for each discipline, including business education.
To make it easier for teachers to meet these requirements, TEA’s Texas CTE division has developed teaching resources that are freely available on its website. Since Business Management is a specified course within the Texas CTE framework, teachers can follow the course’s guidelines to build an entire course curriculum.
The Texas Business Management plans include 11 units:
- Professional Standards and Communication Skills
- Management
- Ethics and Social Responsibility
- Planning and Decision-Making
- Organizations
- Human Resources
- Leadership and Project Management
- Leadership Roles and Theories
- Quality Control and Information
- Characteristics of Quality
- Career Development and Leadership Skills
With 11 units of content, there are more than enough resources to keep students learning for an entire semester. There is also a scope and sequence document to help guide educators through the curriculum.
Unfortunately, the biggest shortcoming of the Texas CTE Business Management curriculum is that it is incomplete. The website includes resources for only some of the units, so teachers looking for a complete curriculum will need to fill in the gaps themselves. Since the curriculum is state-specific, teachers outside Texas may need to adapt the content to meet their standards.
However, Texas CTE still provides great lessons in units such as Leadership and Project Management, Planning and Decision-Making, and Organizations.
4. Business Management Lesson Plans from Mr. George's Academics
Mr. George is a high school business teacher from Massachusetts. To help his students and fellow teachers, he’s assembled free business management lesson plans on his website.
Mr. George focuses his Business Management Lesson Plans on entrepreneurship and the management skills needed to start and run a business successfully. The plans are designed to last one semester at the high school level.
Content in Mr. George’s Business Management Lesson Plans includes six units:
- Introduction to Entrepreneurship
- Communications and Negotiations
- Forms of Ownership
- Financial Statements
- Marketing
- Human Resource Management
These plans include PowerPoints, student handouts, and projects surrounding the six units. There is also a course syllabus that conveys Mr. George’s overall objectives for the class.
Mr. George’s Academics could be a good fit for teachers looking to cover business management in the context of other business subjects, particularly entrepreneurship.
Teachers should be aware, though, that they might need to add additional material if teaching management for an entire semester. Some of the units include more content and worksheets than others, so instructors should be prepared to supplement these lessons with other resources when using Mr. George’s Business Management Lesson Plans.
All the same, teachers who want quick, free resources to cover business management would be pleased with the materials Mr. George has to offer.
5. Knowledge@Wharton High School
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business is widely regarded as one of the best business programs in the world. To better prepare tomorrow’s business leaders, the Wharton School created Knowledge@Wharton High School (KWHS), a free, encompassing resource intended to provide teachers and students with business curriculum materials to help them succeed.
Business management is just one of many related topics KWHS discusses in depth. KWHS bases its management resources around the standards set by the National Business Education Association (NBEA).
NBEA standards are a national set of competencies that the organization believes are critical to students’ future success and are the basis for many state standards and high school business programs. KWHS lists each of the standards on its website.
KWHS provides complete lesson plans in alignment with the 12 NBEA standards of management:
- Management Functions
- Management Theories
- Business Organization
- Personal Management Skills
- Ethics and Social Responsibility
- Human Resource Management
- Organized Labor
- Technology and Information Management
- Industry Analysis
- Financial Decision Making
- Operations Management
- Global Perspective
The plans are appropriate for grades 9-12 and include additional KWHS articles to help students contextualize and understand each topic under discussion.
Because it is free and openly available, Knowledge@Wharton High School is a tremendous resource for management and other business lesson plans. As with any lesson plans, teachers may still need to supplement their instruction with additional resources where appropriate. Nevertheless, KWHS is based on NBEA standards, making it a great place from which to start.
Which Business Management Materials are Best for You?
Depending on the type of course you are teaching, the length of time you have to teach business management, and the exact course standards you need to cover, one or more of these materials could be a better fit than the others.
If you’re looking for low-cost, supplemental activities to add to your business management curriculum, consider the Business Management Activity Bundle from Business Girl.
If you want free materials you can add to or build your management curriculum around, try resources from Debbie Garcia, Texas CTE, or Mr. George’s Academics.
If it’s essential to have curriculum resources specifically aligned with NBEA standards, then Knowledge@Wharton High School could have the right lesson plans for you.
However, if you’re like other business teachers we speak with, you might not just need business management lesson plans. Do you find yourself constantly looking for new lesson plans and ideas for every topic in your course? Are you often worried that you don’t have enough resources to cover everything you have to address in your business classes?
If you’re always searching for another resource, you might need a full curriculum rather than just a few lesson plans. In that case, you should check out the Top 4 High School Business Education Curriculum Resources.
Each of these resources can help you find lesson plans for multiple business subjects so you can meet the specific needs of your course.
