Sometimes you come across a resource that transforms the way you teach a topic. That was me, several years ago, with this guided note-taking sheet on costs. Before that point, I'd been using a PowerPoint I'd bought to show the basic concepts and then asked students to complete textbook exercises or a worksheet (as an aside, I'm not anti-textbook at all). After making the switch, I noticed we moved through the topic much more quickly, but somehow my students seemed to have understood much more: they seemed much more fluent and flexible with the concepts and this made a great foundation for Theory of the Firm. I used the same principle for other topics in the unit, and have since revised them over and over. I'm now pretty chuffed with the result.
Firstly, the Guided Note Taking Sheets. While they look like normal worksheets (and I reckon they would work ok as an independent revision or homework task), they are designed so that the teacher and students can work through them together when looking at the topic for the first time. By this I mean they don't require students to have learned the stuff in a PowerPoint first, they sort of learn it as you go along. The features I like:
-It prompts the teacher to look at features and relationships so you won't forget anything
-It combines the numerical, graphical and conceptual approaches so students gain a more solid understanding
-It helps the students produce meaningful notes, something they can often struggle to do for this topic
-I found students were pretty engaged because it feels like student and teacher are working together
-It has all the tables and grids already drawn out which saves a bit of time!
I used a visualiser to work through them which worked really well, however, I understand that lots of classrooms don't have one and also that some teachers aren't yet confident enough to go Slideless (oo la la). Because of this, I have also turned the worksheets into PowerPoints. They are set out a section at a time, but the same way the student sheets are set out, so students can follow what you're doing on the board. They are a 'click and reveal' style, so you can pose the questions to your class, discuss and then reveal an answer, which is helpful for those who need help wording ideas (or as a prompt for the teacher if you're a non-specialist!). Since they aren't sequenced, you can reveal answers in any order that you like, which gives you a bit more flexibility - sometimes you just can't predict the way a discussion is going to go in the classroom!
In the interests of full disclosure, my PowerPoints are generally quite... 'minimalist'. If you're expecting bright colours and sounds and things jumping around, you'll be disappointed. I stick to largely black and white, and one reason for this is that each year I seem to have a student who needs a different colour overlay, and the monochrome makes it really easy to change the background colour to suit them whilst still being able to see everything. I also tend to use black and white icons or infographics instead of photos because (and I have no evidence to back this up) I reckon I remember simpler images more easily.
Since the PowerPoints are a little different to what else is around, I'd recommend you take a look at this freebie on Long Run Production and Costs and judge whether you think they'd work for you.
If not, you can buy each Guided Note Taking Sheet separately or all of them together in a booklet. If you like the PowerPoints, you can get them individually or as part of the MegaBundle, which has all the PowerPoints, all the Guided Note Taking Sheets and also the Revenue Extension Booklet which you can read about here. I'm offering the MegaBundle for £10 for 10 days, which is less than half of the price of all of the elements added together.