We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. --Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Why Are We Mapping?
I received an e-mail recently from a teacher who contacted me with a concern that I have heard more than once. The main content of her e-mail read:
My district has had us writing personal maps now for three years. Each month we are told to make sure our maps are up to date, but no one looks at the maps. It is busy work to me. Please tell me how this is helping my students get better at learning.
This teacher has a valid concern. No one should be creating a map simply to create a map. As she pointed out, having a map does not all of a sudden in isolation improve learning. Without thoughtful teacher and administrative pre-planning (prologue) that outlines a strategic action plan that includes direction concerning why we are mapping, the potential for the positive impacts curriculum mapping can have are lost. Critical to implementation is the realization that what improves learning over time is teacher engagement focused on recursive analyzing (questioning) of three components—curriculum design (curriculum maps) plus instructional practices and strategies (instructional/lesson plans) plus assessments (formative, summative, common)—based on issues, concerns, and/or bright spots.
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ust as action research asks a teacher or teachers to recursively formulate a question, plan, implement, gather, and analyze, teachers engaged in ongoing curriculum work can incorporate not only the maps themselves, but incorporate the search and report features within a mapping system to aid in individual or collaborative research, PLC focus/goal, etc.
ust as action research asks a teacher or teachers to recursively formulate a question, plan, implement, gather, and analyze, teachers engaged in ongoing curriculum work can incorporate not only the maps themselves, but incorporate the search and report features within a mapping system to aid in individual or collaborative research, PLC focus/goal, etc.While collaborative Essential Maps and Consensus Maps are critical for ensuring vertically articulated curriculum-learning focuses, equally important is the ongoing operational evidence of each teacher in his or her classroom based upon the agreed-upon essential and consensus learning requisites.
Jacobs (1997) comments:
Curriculum mapping is a procedure for collecting data about the actual curriculum in a school district using the school calendar as an organizer. Data are gathered in a format that allows each teacher to present an overview of his or her students’ actual learning experiences. The fundamental purpose of mapping is communication. (p. 61, emphasis added)
The communication Jacobs refers to can become tainted if one or more teachers do not maintain their personal Projected/Diary Maps on a monthly basis to ensure the mapping system’s database accurately reflects the here and now learning of the current academic year. If the map data is not accurate, the search and report features’ results will be invalid or skewed and can cause inappropriate decision making when conducting reviews.
If teachers are not trained and coached in how to use the operational-data Diary Map units for inquiry, just having maps will be as this teacher shared, meaningless and minimizes the intent of mapping and the maps as tools for aiding in improving students’ academic learning and teachers’ professional learning.