Evaluation - Making a ‘judge’ment

Here is a little exercise I have done with my AS Business groups this week. When trying to help with the longer essay questions, split the class into groups and and have them practice how to make a judgement for each essay question. I am using this for the OCR F292 Case Study of TSL. You can have one person in each group as the prosecution stating why they have made one certain judgement and then have another person acting as the defence stating why they think it should be a different outcome. The teacher can role play as ‘The Judge’ for the first exercise show the class what is expected.

I used phrases like, ‘having weighed up the evidence’, it is difficult to tell which option is actually going to be better’....‘In the short run, ‘A’ might be a better option for the following reasons (use cash flow, teething problems, lose of motivation, change can cause upset to staff and so on) but in the longer run, based on the evidence, ‘B’ might indeed be the better option. Although A is cheaper and the more favoured option with management and employees and I have not taken that into consideration, but I think that B is the better option as it will provide more security in terms of sales, job rentention and so on’....my reasons of this of course include the PESTLE factors….and go on to mention them. The key thing here is to get them to make a judgement - using the Case; just as a judge in a court room would.

This can also be adapted for the 9 mark questions for the GCSE AQA Business exam. Take a few sample 9 mark questions between the class. They will be split into teams (3 in a group), each team has a different 9 mark question. They will have the prosecution (option A) and the defence (Option B) and each person will have to out their case forward with the other person in the group being the *judge* and having to ‘make the decision’ based on all the evidence shown. Might be a fun way to help them gain marks for their 9 marker and strengthen their recommendation skills. Good to show picture of a court room in the background to make it real.

Borrow some gowns and wigs from your drama department. Show image of a courtroom in your classroom on the projector. Make it real and make it fun (revision sessions can drag on a little at this time of year and I think you may find this a welcome change from past papers) - but ensure they get the point of actually making some sort of judgement based on the evidence within the Case.