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I am interested in developing a connection between the Standards of Learning and the concept of Curriculum Mapping. My telephone is 804-3231550 or e-mail macafi@aol.com

Please explain the "Concept of Curriculum Mapping".

This is curriculum mapping as outlined by Dr.Heidi Hayes Jacobs in her book Mapping the BIG Picture. Using Curriculum Mapping data we can focus curriculum on the SOLs as well as other areas

Thank you for replying. Unfortunately I am as much in the dark now as before. In more than 15 years as an educator, I've never heard of Dr. Jacobs, her book, or Curriculum Mapping. I've heard of Mind Mapping, a minimally useful pre-writing exercise that was bandwagoned a number of years ago. In my experience, it is not difficult to "focus curriculum on the SOLs" or other goals and objectives.

So, if you don't mind, please, again, what is Curriculum Mapping? Anne

Curriculum Mapping is a somewhat involved subject. Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs' book, Curriculum Mapping the Big Picture is a good source of detail information. I have read her book and have been to a three day seminar that she gave in Chattanooga Tenn. I will try to give you a short description in this message.

Curriculum Mapping is a process that requires that every teacher in a school prepare a written description of the curriculum that he/she is currently using in the classroom. The description is structured into three basic sections.

1. Content ..description of the lessons objectives etc.
2. Skills or Strategy .. to be improved or developed
3. Assessment ..how the skills will be verified.. tested

This information must be oriented into a schedule by month for the entire school year.

The normal procedure is to enter this information into some type of computer system and printed.

The system as proposed by Dr. Jacobs has 7 steps.

1. Collect and print the data
2. The first read-through ..all faculty reads all data privately.
3. Mixed Group Review session ..small group who do not normally work together
4. Large Group Review ..all faculty lead by someone who can chart the findings and identify
patterns.
5. Develop smaller review teams 10 or less and edit for points that can be revised immediately
6. Determine points that will require research and/or log term development
7. Set up a continuous review cycle

The book then goes into detailed explanation of what problems to look for. such as :

Identify gaps between grades within a subject...
Identify repetitions....
Identify possible area for integration....
Match Assessment with standards ***
Review for Timeliness etc.

I am very involved in a system that matches all this data with the SOLs using a database to collect and unitize the data and link the units to the SOLs

Hope this helps

Mac

Mac, Thank you very much. It was an excellent explanation.

Last spring I read a comparison of states' strengths in education and Virginia ranked number one in curriculum because of the strength and scope of our SOL's. The article was probably in Education Weekly (but may have been in Teacher Magazine - I read both about the same time).

If we were in Tennessee with the author of the book, or WVA, or Kentucky, or Michigan, or even NY (with it's stately Regents), or other states I'm not familiar with, Curriculum Mapping would be a fabulous tool for developing what we already have here in sunny Virginia!

As you described it, copious amounts of teacher time is involved in finding what in Virginia is minute omissions in a twenty-year project to define what our kids are to learn. That time would, in my opinion, be better used to develop the MEAT of teaching the SOLs.... finding the texts, creating the supplements, developing the lesson plans, and testing all the above to insure that the children are learning what the SOLs say they should. I'd rather see teachers spending the time you'd have them spend on re-writing their existing lesson plans, on developing new ones that incorporate the WWW as text and supplement, their own Powerpoint (etc) files as lesson plans, and multitudinous examples of projects (on or not the Internet)that can be pursued cheerfully and enthusiastically to enable student skills to emerge and blossom. The time to write the curriculum is over for now, and will not come to be for another decade. The time to write the meat to fulfill the curriculum is before us. If a few are separated who will look towards the next (ten years hence) set of SOLs, so be it, but please let the teachers be involved in fleshing out the SOLs to reality rather than nit-picking them so soon after new publication. With that said, I wish you good fortune in your exhaustive project to find the gliches in the current, SOLs II.....
Anne Pemberton

Curator, Academy One on Virginia's PEN http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Anthology/Pav/Academy1

I, too, am interested in curriculum mapping. The brief explanation that I read here seems to be what we did as we analyzed the test scores from previous years. (Maybe without the name and those specific steps) Anymore information that could be forwarded my way would be so appreciated.

It appears, in my system, mapping is something done to align all teachers of a particular grade. It seems to take away something from the teacher's individualizing instruction. What if your maps for Science and Social Studies do not align Virginia natural resources? What if you KNOW this is a good thing to do, but your map says these will be done at separate times? Is mapping the most effective way to be sure all teachers are teaching all of the SOL's?

Anne

Your comments are appreciated but allow me to explain my position on Curriculum Mapping. I am neither an expert nor an advocate of Curriculum Mapping. My role has been to develop a Curriculum Data Base that will assist teachers and/or curriculum designers to document curriculum. The source of the curriculum data can be from anywhere. We are in the process of adding Internet access to the database so that teachers or whomever can download curriculum into the database. The key feature to the data base is that we have entered the entire standards of learning text into the data base and the teacher can link her/his curriculum to the standards. We are interested in enhancing the linkage between the standards and the curriculum. The teachers who have used this data base were enthusastic about the system and commented that it would be a breeze to prepare lesson plans after using the database system to organize and collect their curriculum information. If they want to extract data for mapping that is an option for only those who are interested. The main feature is that it allows the curriculum to be oriented where necessary to the standards.

I recognize your expertise in this field. I would welcome any input you might have to this message.

Mac

The Curriculum Mapping referred to here is the concept described in Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs book Curriculum Mapping The Big Picture ....

Basically the Mapping is looking at the subject matter from K to 12 on a year to year basis...Not within one grade.

Mapping brings out gaps and overlaps by subject and also allows the curriculum designers to develop interdisplinary activities between subjects on a calendar basis. I am not an expert nor an advocate. I am primarily interested in the development of a Curriculum Database that can support mapping and also assist in linking curriculum to the standards of learning..
Mac