Curriculum Mapping: Plotting a Course for Instruction & Learning

1. CurriculumMapping: Plotting a Course for Instruction & Learning Presented by: Jackie Lichter, Ph.D.

2. Today’s Agenda • Welcome and Introductions • What is curriculum mapping and why do it? • Explore how curriculum mapping helps facilitate teacher to teacher dialogue so as to identify gaps, spiral rather than repeat classroom experiences and align curriculum to Common Core State Standards. • Using the Common Core Standards, we will map the embedded content and skills necessary to teach the content and an assessment to evidence mastery which includes applications.

3. Introduction to Curriculum Mapping • Heidi Hayes Jacobs • president of Curriculum Designers, Inc. • educational consultant • adjunct associate professor • author of numerous books on curriculum mapping

4. Introduction to Curriculum mapping • Ann Johnson • Director of Professional Development for Curriculum Designers, Inc. • independent consultant • co-authored The Curriculum Mapping Planner with Heidi Hayes Jacobs

5. What is curriculum mapping? • A ongoing process of documenting and refining the actual curriculum • Gaining a perspective • Process that allows educators to share their work electronically-no more filing curriculum guides on shelves in binders (Hayes Jacobs & Johnson, 2009)

6. Global curriculum maps(Hayes jacobs & Johnson, 2009, p. 7) • Atlas Curriculum Management System www.rubiconatlas.com/mapping.htm • The Curriculum Mapper: • www.clihome.com/curriculummapper • Curricuplan: • www.curricuplan.com • Performance Pathways: • www.techpaths.com • School Software Group: • www.schoolsoftwaregroup.com

7. Why map? • To make sense of our students’ experiences over time. • It forces us to commit to when a skill will be taught. • Provides a blueprint of learning targets for students to take with them when they leave.

8. Why Map? • 5. Provides meaningful short and long term data. • Aligns the curriculum to ensure a consistent implementation of the Common Core Standards • 7. Allows us to upload and download curriculum maps nationally and internationally between classroom teachers (Hayes Jacobs & Johnson, 2009)

9. Why Map? • “To make sense of our students’ experiences over time, we need two lenses; a zoom lens into this year’s curriculum for a particular grade and a wide-angle lens to see the K-12 perspective” • (Hayes-Jacobs, 1997, p.3).

10. Heidi Hayes Jacobs & Ann Johnson • “Schools who have implemented curriculum mapping from a systemic perspective find it leads to a more dynamic, focused curriculum; stronger alignment with assessments, instruction, and reporting; new ways of collecting and analyzing data; a more cohesive approach to planning and implementing professional development; and an opportunity to strengthen the organizational and leadership structure in a school or district”

11. It is about each individual student’s… • Right to reach for the stars

12. It is about us… To help us work smarter not harder

13. Road Map • Curriculum mapping alerts you to where you are, where you are going and where you’ve been.

14. Calendar Based • A compilation of the content, skills and assessments that a student experiences at each grade level.

15. Communication Tool • Grade-level teams examine maps to see what occurs in the content area for an entire year. • Teachers within a building use maps for a true picture of what a student experience from grade to grade.

16. Adding to your pedagogy • In your teacher training… • you likely first learned to lesson plan • then you wrote unit plans …but the complete picture was never painted.

17. Often times missing the target

18. Summary • Very simply, curriculum mapping is a current way of documenting, managing and discussing the real curriculum.

19. Essence of mapping • “The active and deliberate examination of the curriculum is the essence of mapping. Mapping is a verb, an action to be carried out by the faculties as they breathe life into the curriculum” • (Hayes-Jacobs, 2010, p. 20)

20. Seeing how the Individual Parts contribute to the whole picture • Content • Skills • Assessment • Essential Questions

21. Process of Creating Maps • Organized by calendar months • Written in teacher-friendly language • Not textbook objective language • Not standards language

22. Different kinds of maps • Journal/Diary Maps: each teacher records the content, skills and assessments every few weeks, per month or trimester to clearly evidence student learning. • (Hayes Jacobs, 2009).

23. Different kinds of maps • Projection Maps: content, skills and assessments for the entire year are recorded at one or two sessions and revised on an ongoing basis. • (Hayes Jacobs, 2009).

24. Different kinds of maps • Consensus Maps: includes the content, skills, and assessments that everyone in a grade level or course agree will be taught and implemented (Hayes Jacobs, 2009).

25. Reflect on these questions… • Where do you get the information as to what should be taught to the students at a particular grade level? • How do you know what is expected?

26. Teacher to teacher • “We use our maps…to gain information; replace repetition with spiraling classroom experiences; analyze gaps in student learning and mend them in the maps; align to standards; integrate natural curricular connections between disciplines and classrooms; update our maps on a regular basis for timeliness, given the proliferation of knowledge; and stay vigilant in our quest for internal coherence in the map [curriculum]” (Hayes Jacobs, 2009, p. 2).

27. Defining the terms • Common Core State Standards • Essential Questions • Content • Skills • Assessments

28. Common Core State Standards Initiative • State-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

29. The Common Core State standards: • Are aligned with college and work expectations; • Are clear, understandable and consistent; • Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills; • Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards; • Are informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and • Are evidence-based.

30. What is an Essential Question • The essence of what you think students should examine in the short time they have with you. • A curriculum formed around questions rather than objectives so the message is clearer to students • It is the organizer

31. Essential Questions • What overarching questions will guide instruction? • What overarching questions might help students to link or connect a “big idea” or topic to other concepts? • What questions point beyond the unit to other transferable ideas? • How are the essential questions linked to skills and assessments?

32. The Essential Question is the creative choice • Choice # 1 What was the effect of the Civil War? • Choice # 2 Is the Civil War still going on?

33. The Essential Question is the creative choice • Choice # 1 How does community affect my life? • Choice # 2 What do I owe my community…or do I?

34. Criteria for Writing Essential Questions • Each child should be able to understand the question. • Each question should be distinct and substantial. • The questions should be realistic given the time allocated for the unit. • The questions should be posted in the • classroom

35. Let’s give it a try • Working in partners, write one essential question you would like to explore with your students in a specific subject/s during the first few weeks of school.

36. Content • The subject matter, key concepts, facts, topics, and important information taught in a specific course in a given subject

37. Examples of Content • Order of Operations • Patriotic Music • Persuasive Writing • Simplifying fractions • Role of museums in preserving societal values • Matter • Cardiovascular fitness

38. Identifying essential content • Choose one of the CCSS listed in your packet. • Working with a partner, brainstorm the content embedded in the standard you chose and list it in the space provided on your handout.

39. Skills • Skills are the targeted proficiencies, technical actions and strategies within a specific content area.

40. Skills • Are Precise! • Can be assessed, observed and described in specific terms-unlike general processes-and connected to assessments and standards • Are described with action words (Bloom’s Taxonomy)

41. Examples of Skills • Find the main idea and supporting paragraph • Estimate sums and differences using rounding techniques to the nearest 1000 • Interpret data represented in a bar graph • Label the parts of a friendly letter • Explain the difference between fact and opinion

42. Indentifying essential skills • Using the same standard and content used in the previous exercise, identify the specific skills a student would need to acquire in order to evidence mastery of that standard. Record them in the space provided on your handout.

43. Developing assessments • Using the same standard, content and skill, identify the specific assessment a student would need to acquire in order to evidence mastery of that standard. • Standard: • Content: • Skill(s) • Assessment:

44. Summary/Questions • Good Luck and Happy Mapping!

45. REsources • Hayes Jacobs, H., (Ed). (2010). Curriculum 21 essential • education for a changing world. Alexandria, VA: ASCD • Hayes Jacobs, H. & Johnson, A. (2009). TheCurriculum • mapping planner. Alexandria, VA: ASCD • Hayes Jacobs, H. (1997). Mapping the big picture: Integrating • curriculum & assessment K-12