Does Your School Need to Start Curriculum Mapping?
Curriculum mapping is becoming increasingly popular amongst educators. For more information about curriculum maps, check out this blog.
Working with thousands of teachers and administrators who have added curriculum mapping to their schools, we’ve started to notice some similarities. Ask yourself the following questions to determine if curriculum mapping makes sense for your school.
With the Chalk.com Curriculum Mapper, you can start mapping in minutes. Learn more.
Are textbooks the only school resources teachers are using?
An over-reliance on textbooks may cause teachers to lose their value as professional educators. Instead, the textbook becomes the teacher, with textbook publishers guiding this instruction. This limits teachers from being able to modify their instruction to meet the needs of the specific class they are teaching.
When curriculum mapping is used in your school, the textbook begins to become obsolete. Curriculum maps include the content that must be taught throughout the term, with suggested teaching strategies and assessment methods. Teachers are encouraged to use resources that are more engaging to students, and that reflect the most current information available.
Do you feel like your curriculum hasn’t changed in 5 years?
Society is continually changing, and your curriculum should be changing along with it. However, it can be difficult to ensure that every teacher is ensuring that their class is learning the most up to date information. In addition, once a teacher gains more experience, they may fall into teaching habits that may not necessarily take advantage of new teaching strategies, assessment options or course content.
Curriculum mapping ensures that what is actually taught is recorded, allowing for the curriculum to be modified for the next year based on the best teaching strategies. Recording what was taught allows curriculum to develop naturally over time, as teachers are encouraged to try new strategies and use new resources as they see fit.
Do you feel like there should be more collaboration between teachers at your school?
Curriculum development should be a collaborative process. Teachers should be encouraged to learn best practices from each other, and give each other feedback when they notice areas of improvement. However, this can be difficult to achieve, as many teachers are uncomfortable sharing their strategies with their peers.
Curriculum mapping provides an easy method for veteran teachers to share their years of experience with new teachers. This benefits both veteran and new teachers, as well as your students. Veteran teachers are given an opportunity to reflect on strategies that have worked in their career. New teachers learn from those who have been there before. Students benefit from teachers who are highly focused on improving themselves and their peers, leading to higher quality education, Creating a collaborative environment within your school is the best method to create continually improving curriculum.
Ensure teacher collaboration with the Chalk.com Curriculum Mapper. It integrates directly with Planboard to add curriculum maps directly into every teacher’s daily workflow.
Are teachers who teach the same subject and grade level covering different content?
Horizontal alignment occurs when students in different classes of the same subject and grade level are taught the same content. This is critical for your school as students from different classes may join the same class in the next grade level. It will be much easier for the next grade level’s teachers if all students were taught the same content, than trying to identify the gaps in each student’s previous education.
Curriculum mapping ensures that each teacher is planning their lessons with the same information, and their coverage of the content is being recorded, allowing for changes to be made as necessary throughout the class. This helps teachers stay at the same pace as others in their subject area and grade, and collaborate with other classes on large projects.
Are you worried that students are not fully prepared for the new year?
Vertical alignment occurs when students are adequately prepared to move on to the next lesson, course, or grade level after finishing the prior equivalent. This helps to ensure a consistent flow from one grade to the next, preventing a large gap in education that the next lesson, course, or grade must sacrifice time to make up for.
Curriculum mapping ensures that each student is adequately prepared for the next challenge through the direct link to curriculum standards, and collaboration amongst teachers of different subjects and grade levels. Teaching strategies can be shared between grade levels, keeping a consistent teaching quality throughout a student’s progress through school.
Do you feel like your school is not adequately covering all relevant standards?
Standards are in place to ensure that every student leaves school adequately prepared for higher levels of education or the workforce. However, it can be difficult to keep up with each standard set, and see how they can be easily added into lesson plans. This may cause some schools to focus on certain standards, while another school focuses on a different set of standards.
Curriculum mapping provides a direct link between the standards and the content and skills taught in class and how they are assessed. Teachers and administrators can ensure that each standard is adequately addressed within the appropriate class, and that assessments have been performed to ensure that each student actually has met each standard.
If you answered yes to most or all of these questions, you should consider adding curriculum maps into your school! Check out this free guide to learn how to start the process at your school.
