Introduction to Business and Technology: What Is It and What Are Its Standards?

If you’re new to teaching Introduction to Business and Technology in Georgia, you may be confused about what this course entails and what standards you have to meet to ensure your students learn the skills they need.

As a business education curriculum developer, Georgia teachers often approach us with questions about this course. So what is Intro to Business and Technology? What knowledge does this course instill, and what do you have to teach to cover its course standards?

In this article, you’ll discover what Introduction to Business and Technology is, and what skills your students must learn to pass. 

By the end of this article, you’ll have a stronger grasp of this course, its purpose, and the course standards so you can teach it to the best of your ability. 

What Is Introduction to Business and Technology?

Intro to Business and Technology is a foundational course intended to serve as a gateway to CTAE pathways like Business and Technology and Human Resources Management. 

It is designed to teach high schoolers essential business and technology skills that they can employ in the workplace or at college. Students will gain an understanding of specific subjects like business principles, financial decision-making, professional communication, fundamental computer skills, and more. 

Moreover, this course fosters critical thinking in students by having them apply their newfound skills to specific activities and projects. This ensures they’re gaining practical knowledge they can use in their careers. 

At the end of the course, students should be equipped to pass a certification exam and earn the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Word Core Certification with the skills they developed along the way. 

What Are the Intro to Business and Technology Course Standards?

Overall, Introduction to Business and Technology has 12 broad course standards, each of which is divided into subsections that cover individual skills. 

These course standards are:

1. Demonstrate employability skills required by business and industry.
2. Apply technology as a tool to increase productivity to create, edit, and publish industry appropriate documents.
3. Master word processing software to create, edit, and publish professional-appearing business documents.
4. Analyze and integrate leadership skills and management functions within the business environment.
5. Demonstrate understanding of the concept of marketing and its importance to business ownership.
6. Use professional oral, written, and digital communication skills to create, express, and interpret information and ideas.
7. Demonstrate an understanding of entrepreneurship through recognizing a business opportunity, how to start a business based on the recognized opportunity, and basics of how to operate and maintain that business.
8. Understand, interpret, and use accounting principles to make financial decisions.
9. Develop effective money management strategies and understand the role and functions of financial institutions.
10. Research and interpret the various risks involved in operating a business while determining the role of insurance for a business.
11. Examine basic human resources and the legal aspects of a business while incorporating the methods into business practices.
12. Explore how related student organizations are integral parts of career and technology education courses through leadership development, school and community service projects, entrepreneurship development, and competitive events.

Below, we’ll look at each of these standards in more detail so you’ll know what you have to do to satisfy them in your instruction.

Course Standard 1: Employability Skills

The first course standard requires students develop the necessary critical thinking and communication skills to thrive in the workplace. 

To meet this requirement, students must be able to:

1. Communicate effectively through writing, speaking, listening, reading, and interpersonal abilities.
2. Demonstrate creativity by asking challenging questions and applying innovative procedures and methods.
3. Exhibit critical thinking and problem solving skills to locate, analyze and apply information in career planning and employment situations.
4. Model work readiness traits required for success in the workplace including integrity, honesty, accountability, punctuality, time management, and respect for diversity.
5. Apply the appropriate skill sets to be productive in a changing, technological, diverse workplace to be able to work independently and apply teamwork skills.
6. Present a professional image through appearance, behavior and language.

These general employability skills are essential to helping students meet professional expectations in the business world.

Course Standard 2: Technological Skills

This standard measures a student’s knowledge of technology, including how they can use to increase productivity in a safe, legal manner. 

To meet this standard, students have to: 

1. Practice respectful and responsible use of technology.
2. Demonstrate ethical and legal actions with regard to plagiarism, fair use, and copyright laws.
3. Execute efficient online searches for specific and creditable resources.
4. Model the ability to work independently and as a team member.
5. Demonstrate time-management and organizational skills to complete tasks in allotted time.
6. State how changes in technology affect the workplace and society.
7. Apply good design principles to create professional appearing and functioning business documents.
8. Compare and contrast technology tools’ uses for efficiency in business.
9. Apply practices that deter, detect, and defend against identity theft for a business and personal safety.
10. Utilize technology in a variety of ways while solving business problems.

These skills are important for students to thrive in professional business settings and ensure they know how to navigate most essential hardware and software.

Course Standard 3: Word Processing Skills

This standard has students learn word processing software so that they can create accurate and effective digital documentation. 

To meet this standard, students have to demonstrate the ability to: 

1. Create, share and maintain documents.
2. Format document content.
3. Apply page layout and reusable content to documents.
4. Insert illustrations and graphics in a document.
5. Proofread documents to validate content.
6. Apply references and hyperlinks in a document.
7. Perform mail merge operations.

By learning these valuable writing and editing skills, students will be able to create professional-looking documentation almost no matter their career.

Course Standard 4: Leadership Skills

This standard requires students to analyze the place of management in business and practice leadership skills like organization and strategic planning. 

To reach this standard, each student is expected to: 

1. Explain the interrelationships between the functions of business: accounting, finance, production, marketing, sales, and management.
2. Define, explain and apply various management functions including planning, organizing, directing, and controlling.
3. Explain the importance of a vision, a mission statement, and goal-setting within the context of the business environment.
4. Apply the decision making process to a business situation.
5. Discuss the impact of the business and personal reputation and image including online presence as part of the management of the business.
6. Understand employee impact and management’s role in contributing to successful business operations.
7. Exhibit organizational skills while planning and executing business projects.
8. Implement strategic plans to manage business growth, profit, and goals.
9. Investigate leadership skills within a successful business environment.

These skills are fundamental to helping students become a new generation of professional leaders and planners.

Course Standard 5: Marketing Knowledge

For this standard, students must learn the importance of marketing in business and the various ways it can be accomplished. 

To meet this standard, students must: 

1. Explain the fundamental marketing concepts used by a small business.
2. Understand target market and demographics in marketing strategies.
3. Create a customer database using database software to create and maintain an accurate customer list.
4. Use customer database to pull specific data to target for marketing campaign.
5. Evaluate different types of promotional tools for business product and/or services.
6. Use innovation to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Overall, this standard goes a long way toward helping students learn how to get a brand’s name out there and gather the data necessary to do so.

Course Standard 6: Professional Communication Skills

This course standard requires students develop strong digital, oral, and written communication skills in order to interpret and present information in the most effective ways possible. 

To satisfy these requirements, students must be able to: 

1. Exhibit appropriate business (oral, written, and digital) communication skills needed in the workplace to facilitate information and communication.
2. Explore social media etiquette and importance of digital presence.
3. Produce written communications that utilize proper tone, grammar, and bias-free language for the workplace.
4. Employ critical thinking and problem-solving strategies both individually and collaboratively to solve real-world and/or business-related problems.
5. Using presentation software, create and deliver simple, clear and compelling presentations effectively to target audiences.
6. Use technology to enhance the effectiveness of communication in a business environment.
7. Use appropriate technology to plan, develop, practice, and present material to different types of audiences for specific business purposes.

These communication skills are critical to ensuring students know how to both interpret and deliver information in a professional environment.

Course Standard 7: Entrepreneurship Skills

This standard measures a student’s knowledge of entrepreneurial skills they have picked up in class, including how to recognize business opportunities and maintain a business. 

To meet this standard, students are expected to know how to: 

1. Identify the unique characteristics, traits, and concepts of the successful entrepreneur.
2. Describe the importance of developing and organizing a successful business plan.
3. Identify components and format of a business plan.
4. Examine the business opportunities available in local school and community.
5. Participate as part of a team in an effort to accomplish a common goal leading to a successful business endeavor.
6. Differentiate between the types of business ownership.
7. Explain the implications of technology on business development and future growth.

These skills are essential to thought leaders and innovators trying to breathe new life into existing markets and industries. 

Course Standard 8: Accounting Knowledge

For this standard, students learn the basics of accounting in order to make important financial decisions. 

The specific tasks students have to be able to perform for this standard are: 

1. View financial statements of a business and utilize those statements to make informed business decisions.
2. Explain the purpose of the various steps in the accounting cycle.
3. Differentiate between debits and credits.
4. Analyze and describe sources of income for the business venture (i.e., sales and labor).
5. Use basic features of spreadsheet software to produce professional financial statements representative of a small business.

This general knowledge of accounting grants students more insight into the practicalities behind generating and spending revenue.

Course Standard 9: Finance and Budgeting Skills

This standard requires that students apply strategies to manage their money and learn the functions of various financial institutions. 

To meet this standard, students have to: 

1. Develop a budget including all essential elements for personal and business use.
2. Compare and contrast the types of financial institutions, both depository and nondepository including the functions and purpose.
3. Examine the principles of banking transactions and the various services of a bank.
4. Apply mathematical operations and processes as well as financial planning strategies to commonly occurring situations in the workplace to accomplish job objectives and enhance workplace performance.
5. Examine the features and effects of online banking including mobile banking for the business and the consumer.
6. Explore a personal credit report and the impact of credit on business and personal life.

By exploring this practical, comprehensive knowledge, students learn both how to manage their business’ money as well as the greater financial picture when it comes to ensuring their business is a success. 

Course Standard 10: Risk Assessment and Insurance Knowledge

This standard requires that students be able to identify and manage the risks associated with running their business and research the insurance their business will likely need. 

To meet this standard, students must demonstrate the ability to: 

1. Identify possible business threats and employ risk management strategies and techniques to minimize potential financial loss.
2. Identify types of business insurance and the need for insurance in a business.
3. Explain basic insurance concepts: insurance, policyholder, premium, probability, risk, claim, coverage, deductible, policy, insured, insurer, and liability.
4. Analyze risks to make insurance decisions.
5. Explore the various career options associated with the insurance field.

Knowing these fundamental knowledge points will allow students to avoid and manage risk as effectively as possible when it comes to strategic business planning. 

Course Standard 11: Legal Knowledge and Human Resources

This standard requires that students learn all the legal concerns associated with operating their own business. It also covers human resources issues like how to recruit and retain new staff. 

For this standard, students have to display the ability to: 

1. Differentiate among types of business crimes and identify the strategies that businesses can use to deter crimes.
2. Demonstrate understanding of specific legal areas that most commonly affect personal and business relationships.
3. Contract law, insurance, bankruptcy, property law, computer law, harassment, discrimination.
4. Describe the legal requirements of obtaining a business license, permit, contract, patent, copyright, trademark, and logo.
5. Create a plan for recruiting, hiring, and retaining a new employee and the associated costs.
6. Job application, social media impacts, credit report analysis, appearance impact, etc.
7. Review employment and labor laws impacting business.

By learning these concepts, students will equip themselves to own and operate their business from the ground up, able to handle any legal or recruitment matters that arise. 

Course Standard 12: Student Organizations like FBLA

This standard is a change of course, focusing on the importance of student organizations like Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and how they grant CTAE students opportunities to gain leadership experience, create community service projects, and compete in events with their peers. 

To meet this standard, students must be able to: 

1. Explain the goals, mission and objectives of Future Business Leaders of America.
2. Explore the impact and opportunities a student organization (FBLA) can develop to bring business and education together in a positive working relationship through innovative leadership and career development programs.
3. Explore the local, state, and national opportunities available to students through participation in related student organizations (FBLA) including but not limited to conferences, competitions, community service, philanthropy, and other FBLA activities.
4. Explain how participation in career and technology education student organizations can promote lifelong responsibility for community service and professional development.
5. Explore the competitive events related to the content of this course and the required competencies, skills, and knowledge for each related event for individual, team, and chapter competitions.

By participating in student organizations like FBLA, students will gain experience in business as well as confidence in their own abilities so that they can succeed in the working world.

Need Help Meeting the Intro to Business and Technology Course Standards?

When it comes to teaching CTAE in Georgia, it can be tough keeping up with all the ins and outs of every course you’re responsible for. After all, between lesson planning, grading, and engaging students, you’ve already got so much to handle. 

In this article, you’ve discovered more about Introduction to Business and Technology, including what standards you have to teach to ensure your kids pass. With that in mind, you can go about teaching them skills and knowledge they’ll need for success in their careers. 

But how exactly do you meet these course standards? You know what they are, but where can you find course materials that align directly with your standards so you can teach the most effective class possible?

If you need engaging, comprehensive curriculum to teach your Intro to Business and Technology course, then check out Business&ITCenter21. The iCEV system aligns directly with Georgia course standards so that you have everything you need to make sure your course is one your students remember: