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AP® Business with Personal Finance

Syllabus

AP Business with Personal Finance

Course Essential Questions

  • How do individuals and businesses apply core concepts and principles to make strategic decisions that solve complex problems and achieve their goals?
  • How do the entrepreneurial process and effective marketing lead to a successful business that satisfies a gap in the market?
  • How do leaders and families use accounting and finance data to make effective long-term decisions for organizations and households?
  • How do managers and individuals strategically address internal capacities and external environmental factors to shape the viability of businesses and households?

Course Learning Objectives

  • Explain how fundamental business and personal finance principles shape specific goals and actions.
  • Develop a validated product or service idea by identifying market opportunities and testing business hypotheses.
  • Evaluate potential courses of action using systematic criteria and strategic frameworks.
  • Produce authentic business and financial communications tailored to reach and persuade specific audiences.
  • Analyze the financial health and performance of organizations and households.
  • Assess how internal capabilities, competition, and external PESTEL factors impact viability.
  • Construct comprehensive personal financial plans integrating budgeting, debt, risk, and investing.

Unit 1: Businesses, Competition, and New Ideas (Weeks 1-7)

Unit Level Essential Questions

  • How do businesses identify and validate market opportunities to create products that solve real customer problems?
  • How do external PESTEL factors and internal core competencies determine a business's competitive advantage and long-term viability?
  • In what ways do business ownership structures, ethics, and leadership roles influence the achievement of organizational goals?

Week 1: Business Basics

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Identify ways businesses address customers’ problems, needs, and wants.
  • Distinguish between value creation and value capture.

Week 2: Markets

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain how sellers and buyers interact in a market, establishing a market price.
  • Develop or evaluate a business's plan to achieve competitive advantage in a market.

Week 3: PESTEL Factors

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe the PESTEL factors that shape markets.
  • Explain how PESTEL factors influence business viability and career opportunities in a market.
  • Apply the PESTEL framework to evaluate the attractiveness and potential risks of a market.

Week 4: Idea Generation & Validation

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe strategies entrepreneurs and businesses use to generate new product ideas.
  • Describe the risk involved in bringing a new product to market and the reasons entrepreneurs and existing businesses are willing to incur the risk.
  • Apply an entrepreneurial design-thinking process to the generation and validation of a new business or product idea.

Week 5: Vision, Mission, & Ethics

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain how core values and core competencies shape business and individual decision making.
  • Develop or evaluate a vision statement and/or mission statement based on a business's goals and values.
  • Describe the goals of businesses, social enterprises, and nonprofit organizations.
  • Explain how and why businesses encourage ethical behavior.
  • Explain how business leaders respond to ethical dilemmas.

Week 6: Organization & Roles

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe the major types of business organization and their relative advantages and disadvantages.
  • Define the roles and responsibilities of sole proprietors and partners.
  • Explain how and why large businesses organize responsibilities into a structure that includes leadership and management of specialized departments as well as outsourcing.
  • Describe the roles, responsibilities, and purposes of specialized departments in a business.

Week 7: Supply Chains

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe factors businesses consider when developing a production process.
  • Develop or describe a supply chain plan for a product.
  • Explain how a business's competitive advantage strategy influences supply chain decisions.

Unit 2: Marketing (Weeks 8-15)

Unit Level Essential Questions

  • How does a deep understanding of consumer behavior and the psychological principles of persuasion drive marketing decisions?
  • How do businesses use market research and data visualization to iteratively test hypotheses and refine their product-market fit?
  • How do pricing strategies, marketing channels, and promotional campaigns adapt to the changing needs of customers throughout the product life cycle?

Week 8: Customer Data & Segmentation

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain why and how marketers collect customer data.
  • Use market segmentation to identify target customers and develop a customer profile.
  • Describe the purpose of building customer relationships and develop a plan to build customer relationships.
  • Explain how the collection and use of customer data may make customers vulnerable to privacy infringement, identity theft, and fraud and create risks for businesses.

Week 9: Consumer Behavior

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain why and how consumers make buying decisions.
  • Describe the impact of legal and technological factors on consumer purchasing patterns.
  • Evaluate sales tactics that draw upon Cialdini's principles of influence, and develop a sales tactic.

Week 10: Primary Market Research

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain why businesses conduct market research.
  • Conduct and interpret secondary-source research to assess a market opportunity.
  • Conduct and interpret primary-source research to test a business hypothesis related to target customers and/ or customer preferences.
  • Develop and interpret data visualizations that reflect market research findings.

Week 11: Secondary Research & Data Viz

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain why businesses conduct market research.
  • Conduct and interpret secondary-source research to assess a market opportunity.
  • Conduct and interpret primary-source research to test a business hypothesis related to target customers and/ or customer preferences.
  • Develop and interpret data visualizations that reflect market research findings.

Week 12: Product & Branding

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe the six typical stages of product development, and develop an MVP and value proposition.
  • Develop and evaluate branding for a business or product.
  • Explain how businesses adapt their marketing strategies to address competitive challenges throughout the product life cycle.

Week 13: Pricing Strategies

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Develop and evaluate a pricing strategy.
  • Evaluate how market conditions affect a business's pricing power.
  • Describe legal constraints that limit pricing power.

Week 14: Place, Channels, & Promotion

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe the types of marketing channels available to businesses.
  • Select and evaluate potential marketing channels for a product.
  • Develop or evaluate a marketing campaign.
  • Explain how digital marketing tools have changed business interactions with customers.

Week 15: Units 1 & 2 Review

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Present Project 2 Marketing: Business Canvas Project
  • Review topics from Units 1 & 2.
  • Complete review activities for Units 1 & 2

Unit 3: Personal Saving & Borrowing and Business Finance & Accounting (Weeks 16-23)

Unit Level Essential Questions

  • How do individuals and businesses manage the trade-offs between current spending, future saving, and the use of debt and credit?
  • How do financial statements—income statements, balance sheets, and cash flows—provide the transparency and evidence needed to monitor health and ethical status?
  • How do businesses evaluate the risks and benefits of various funding sources to secure capital for startup costs and operational growth?

Week 16: Saving & Borrowing

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe reasons consumers save, and identify barriers to saving.
  • Explain how PESTEL factors can impact the value of savings and incentives to save.
  • Develop or evaluate a savings plan.
  • Describe reasons consumers borrow money and the funding sources available to them.
  • Explain how a lender evaluates the creditworthiness of a potential borrower.
  • Recommend a strategy to manage a consumer's existing debt and/or use of credit.

Week 17: Tracking and Evaluating Financial Data

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain why businesses and consumers track and evaluate financial data.
  • Describe the roles of accounting and finance departments in the preparation, reporting, and use of financial information.
  • Determine startup costs associated with launching a new business or product.
  • Describe expenses associated with operating a business.

Week 18: Startup Costs and Business Operation

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain why businesses and consumers track and evaluate financial data.
  • Describe the roles of accounting and finance departments in the preparation, reporting, and use of financial information.
  • Determine startup costs associated with launching a new business or product.
  • Describe expenses associated with operating a business.

Week 19: Financial Capital & The Pitch

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain why businesses seek external financial capital.
  • Determine potential sources of financial capital for a business.
  • Describe potential benefits and risks to lenders and investors who provide financial capital to businesses.
  • Develop and evaluate a pitch to prospective lenders or investors.

Week 20: The Income Statement

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Determine and describe components of a business income statement.
  • Evaluate the financial performance of a business using income statement information.
  • Explain why and how businesses and consumers predict and plan for future income and expenses.
  • Develop an income statement or projected income statement for a business.

Week 21: The Balance Sheet

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Determine and describe components of a business balance sheet.
  • Interpret the information in a business's balance sheet.
  • Describe the purpose of determining personal net worth.

Week 22: Applications of Financial Statements

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Apply various financial statements to decision-making for managers and entrepreneurs in a business venture.

Week 23: Cash Flow & Ethics

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Determine and describe components of a business's cash flow statement.
  • Explain how a business's stakeholders use cash flow statement information.
  • Explain why an individual or a business might be incentivized to engage in unethical financial management and reporting practices.
  • Explain how laws and professional codes of conduct encourage ethical behavior by accounting and financial managers.

Unit 4: Management and Strategy (Weeks 24-28)

Unit Level Essential Questions

  • How do management functions and professional leadership skills foster a productive work culture that attracts and retains high-quality human capital?
  • How do businesses use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and benchmarks to evaluate progress toward strategic objectives?
  • How do strategic frameworks like Michael Porter’s Five Forces and SWOT analysis guide evidence-based decision-making in complex competitive environments?

Week 24: Management & Leadership

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe the function of management.
  • Identify and demonstrate effective leadership and business communication skills.
  • Explain why businesses need to hire and develop employees with a variety of core competencies.
  • Explain how businesses compensate, motivate, and seek to retain high-quality employees.

Week 25: Evaluating Performance (KPIs)

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe key performance indicators (KPIs) used to evaluate business performance.
  • Develop or interpret financial and nonfinancial KPIs to monitor a business's financial health and progress toward goals.
  • Explain how businesses use benchmarks.

Week 26: Strategy & Decision Making

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Explain how and why businesses develop and use strategy to achieve goals.
  • Apply a deliberative process to make a business decision.

Week 27: Strategic Frameworks

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Describe Michael Porter's Five Forces strategic framework.
  • Apply Porter's Five Forces to evaluate the competitiveness of a market.
  • Describe SWOT analysis factors used to evaluate business viability.
  • Apply SWOT analysis to assess a business's internal capabilities and external opportunities and threats.

Week 28: Unit 3 & 4 Review

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Communicate the broad goals of the business canvas project in terms of business concepts, marketing, finance, accounting, management, and strategy to an audience.
  • Review topics from Units 3 & 4.
  • Complete review activities for Units 3 & 4.

Unit 5: Personal Goals, Budgeting, and Investing (Weeks 29-30)

Unit Level Essential Questions

  • How does an understanding of taxes, pay stubs, and insurance allow households to manage cash flow and mitigate financial risks?
  • How do personal values, risk tolerance, and time horizons shape the development of saving and investment plans for major life milestones?
  • How can individuals leverage financial planning and technology to overcome behavioral biases and achieve long-term financial security?

Week 29: Taxes & Net Income

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Identify types of taxes paid by individuals.
  • Explain why individuals and households pay different amounts of federal income tax in the U.S.
  • Determine and describe components of an individual's pay stub.

Week 30: Managing Personal Risk

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Identify types of insurable risks individuals face.
  • Describe types of insurance individuals use to protect themselves from financial loss.
  • Recommend appropriate insurance coverage based on an individual's or household's risk tolerance and needs.
  • Explain how individuals and households can protect themselves from risks associated with financial fraud.
  • Explain how financial planning supports an individual's ability to achieve goals related to postsecondary education, housing, retirement, and charitable giving.
  • Describe factors that impact an individual's or household's return on financial assets.
  • Recommend a saving and investment plan based on the postsecondary education, housing, and retirement goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance of an individual or household.

Unit 6: Review and Preparation for the AP Exam (Weeks 31-33)

Week 31: AP Practice Exam

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Review unit topics.
  • Complete practice exam.
  • Recommend a saving and investment plan based on the postsecondary education, housing, and retirement goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance of an individual or household.

Week 32: AP Practice Exam Review

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Review graded practice exam.
  • Complete reflection activity on practice exam.
  • Recommend a saving and investment plan based on the postsecondary education, housing, and retirement goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance of an individual or household.

Week 33: Wrap Up

Weekly Learning Objectives

  • Reflect on your course experience.
  • Complete end of course activities.