Teacher Phil Italiano and some of his students at Lisgar Collegiate demonstrate use of the virtual Sprott Business Competition, a business/management simulator.
Forget about Donald Trump. Students at Lisgar Collegiate Institute have Phil Italiano, a teacher with a passion for business who led his students to victory in the Sprott Business Competition (SBC) last term.
He hopes to do it again with the latest competition that kicked off Feb. 27.
SBC is a web-based simulation which gives high school students the opportunity to make big business choices and watch the results. The object of the game is to make the most money by making the best decisions.
“The competition gives students an interactive way to actually learn how to make business decisions and how their business decisions affect the outcome of the success or failure of the business,” said Laura Roantree, marketing manager and game administrator for SBC.
“We want to engage the students in a team atmosphere and support teachers in finding an effective way to teach business basics.”
While the competition was developed in Ottawa 23 years ago at the Sprott School of Business, it’s been rapidly growing in the last few years. This year, 15,000 high school students in all grades from across Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Manitoba – and even schools in Trinidad and Malaysia that teach the Ontario curriculum – will compete.
“Students are immediately exposed to all the primary functions of a business. Most kids don’t know about production, marketing, human resources, marketing research, inventory management, expenditures,” explained Italiano.
“Then they realize – much like what their parents have to do in their own home budget – you only have so much money so where do you put it? That skill in itself is something the kids walk away with.”
Since Italiano brought Lisgar into the competition three years ago they’ve placed second several times.
Then last semester Italiano’s students, Jeremy Chitpin and Yuxuan Gan, were ecstatic to win the “classic” level, which until recently was the only version of the game.
“We were very surprised,” said Chitpin. “It was our first time playing and it was a challenge. What we really learned is in business there has to be an element of change. You have to be flexible and adaptable.”
The Grade 10 champs are excited to be competing this semester in the new “extreme” level of the game.
“It’ll be like the first one but more extreme,” joked Chitpin.
The competition is tailored to Ontario curriculum requirements. Many teachers choose to integrate the game into their business classes but Italiano doesn’t believe in that route. Instead, he runs the competition as an extracurricular activity.
“The existing curriculum is already quite jammed. To have this as an overlay is a tremendous amount of work and not all students take business courses to delve into it this deeply,” he said.
“You have to be careful because you’re going to be putting 90 per cent of your effort into 10 per cent of your class.”
Italiano said the simulation allows students to decide for themselves if business is the right fit for their future.
“Even if they don’t pursue business as a career they’ve learned a lot about it anyway, which certainly can’t hurt given that they’ll be consumers for many years,” said Italiano.
If students make too many wrong business decisions in the game, just like in the real world, Italiano said it’s extremely difficult to turn it around and win.
“While it’s discouraging for some kids, that in itself is a lesson. We can’t all be winners and sometimes things go bad. The success rate for new businesses is only, like 10 per cent.”
Italiano will be with Lisgar’s winning team May 9 for the live quarter-finals at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business.
He is looking forward to this event, and the years to come.
“(SBC) have plans to make it even better so my intention for as long as I’m (at Lisgar), as long as I’m going to continue to teach, I’m going to make it a staple – something that will always be available to students.”