Getting results with Curriculum Mapping

1. Getting results with Curriculum Mapping

2. Essential Questions: • How can curriculum mapping improve student performance K-12? • How can we revise our curriculum maps using assessment data cumulatively? • How can mapping upgrade curriculum and assessment decision making in our school settings?

3. CM help creates genuine operational professional learning communities.

4. CM works with VIRTUAL time. Giving the possibilities of technology to alter the way we work with time and space issues. We are in a global network of educators.

5. Mapping allows us to merge our assessment findings directly and strategically into structure curriculum decision making.

6. Professional Learning Communities and Curriculum Mapping • “A professional learning community is a place where teachers and students care about, look after, root for one another and work together for the good of the whole, in times of need as well as times of celebration.” • Roland Barth

7. Professional learning community tenets • Effective schools research • Clear purpose • Required product • Flexible grouping • Opportunities for collaboration and reflection • Establishment of common ground/shared vision • Most important: constant focus on students

8. What Is Curriculum Mapping? • Calendar-based curriculum mapping is a procedure for collecting and maintaining a data base of the operational curriculum in a school and/or district. • It provides the basis for authentic examination of the data base.

9. Mapping is a coin with two sides: One side is the documentation –the maps themselves One side is the review process – examining and revising map cumulatively between teachers

10. Technology isnecessary to create a new type of paradigm for successful educational planning!

11. The Hub Effect • Identify initiatives that would be better served through the use of the CM review process • CM is a tool for solving problems

12. Current Trends in CM Practice • New versions in mapping software • Links to assessment data • Tabs to differentiated curriculum • Consensus Maps • Statewide adoptions • Regional service center software and staff development adoptions • Independent school networks • International school networks

13. CM: Closing the Achievement Gap • Discerning selection of standards • Focus on Active Literacy in ALL classrooms • Integrating assessment data via software • Vertically • Across Grades • Formal BENCHMARK assessment Tasks AT THE BUILDING Level

14. New focus on Essential Questions: Obtaining feedback on our questions Using them to negotiate between teachers Organizing instruction as “curriculum chapters”

15. CM: Key Tool for Sustaining Professional Learning Communities • Effective school research • Common ground/common vision • Flexible grouping for decision making • Ongoing monitoring of student progress • Professional development linked to student growth • Focus on students in building • Adjustments in schedules-long term; short term • Adjustments in teacher configurations • Adjustments in student grouping patterns • Adjustments in the use of space

16. Future Directions • Involvement at higher education institutions • Research studies: dissertations emerging • Links to report cards • Student mapping • Links to products/service with new bandwidth possibilities • Integration with video conferencing • Blackberry + PDA versions • I-MAPs (teachers on earphones)

17. Targeting Needs:Discussions, debates, and decisions will be based on… • What is in the best interest of our specific clients, the students in our educational setting? • Their ages • Their stages of development • Their learning characteristics • Their communities • Their aspirations • Their needs • The need for cumulative learning

18. What information do we collect initially on a map? • CONTENT • SKILLS • ASSESSMENT

19. Content:The subject matter itself; key concepts, facts, events, which may be presented with a map in three formats:

20. Content Formats

21. Skills are displayed on a map as: • Precise skills that can be: • Assessed/measured • Observed • Described in specific terms • Skills are action verbs… • Unlike general processes

22. Precision expectation is crucial to skill development. • THE COACH DOESN’T SAY: “We’re working on critical playing skills today.” • THE COACH DOES SAY: “We’re working on driving into the basket.”

23. Observe and make notations of an event in the natural world or space Collect and display data Cite significant variables Pose explanations Predict future results Precision Skills within Disciplines: In Science, there is the general process of INQUIRY … Precise Skills might be:

24. Skills across disciplines precise skills might include: • Edit and revise [skills] in all disciplines • Utilize organizational skills • Read for decoding • Read for text interaction • Speak in a range of forums • Research using technology for information access • Create a technological production purposes • Isolate and improve career habits for personal and group work

25. On Maps, Assessments are the MajorProducts and Performances: • Assessment is the demonstration of learning • Assessment is the observable evidence • They must be listed as defined nouns: • Tangible Products or • Observable Performances

26. Learning to Analyze Assessment Data • Gap analysis • Merging Findings into Maps

27. Multiple Choice 50-Q M.C. Quiz

28. Constructed- Response Questioning? • 10-Q Short-Answer Test

29. Collections of Assessments: • Portfolios • Anthologies • Recordings of observable performances

30. Performance-Based Assessment? • Mount Vernon Historical Research: Individual and Group Presentations

31. ASSESSMENT reveals: _ Proficiency of targeted skill development Knowledge and insight into content

32. Reaching new ground: Guiding a staff to establishing benchmark assessments

33. Mapping Benchmark Assessments • Benchmarks can be designed on multiple levels: state tests, district, classroom tasks. • A school establishes a common set of skills needing development. • An internally generated benchmark assessment task is developed by teachers with the same protocols; the same timetable.

34. Continued... • The task should merge with the ongoing curriculum naturally. • Student products can then be evaluated both vertically and horizontally. • Revisions in the curriculum map should reflect a few targeted skills needing help. • Revisions should be applied thoughtfully to developmental characteristics of the learner.

35. Integrating Cross-Curricular • Identify grade level benchmarks • Use map to identify where skills are being taught • Add appropriate benchmarks that may be missing • Align with classroom assessments • Use feedback from assessments to modify instruction if needed

36. Let’s remember … • Content - is the subject matter; key concepts; facts; topics; important information • Skills - are the targeted proficiencies; technical actions and strategies • Assessment - is the demonstration of learning; the products and performances used as evidence of skill development and content understanding

37. #1 High Technology High CM. #2 Low Technology High CM. HIGH CM development #3 High Technology Low CM. #4 Low Technology Low CM. LOW LOW HIGH TECHNOLOGY

38. Consider a Range of P.D. Venues… • Various Groupings • Hands-On Labs • Small Workshops • Work Sessions • On-line Courses • Staff Development Days Based On Data • Observing Mentors • Peer Coaching • Video Conferencing

39. Now… The CM Seven-Step Review Process: • 1. Collecting the Data • 2. First Read-Through • 3. Small Like/Mixed-Group Review • 4. Large Like/Mixed-Group Comparisons • 5. Determine Immediate Revision Points • 6. Determine Points Requiring Some Research and Planning • 7. Plan for Next Review Cycle • (from Mapping the Big Picture: Integrating Curriculum and Assessment K-12; 1997, ASCD, Jacobs, HH.)

40. What About a District/ Building’s Self-Assessment?(cont.) • Have you conducted reviews to determine gaps and repetitions? • Have you developed and implemented a process to deal with gaps and repetitions? • Have you developed grade level/course level essential maps? If so, have individual diary/projected maps been edited to reflect them as instruction is taking place?

41. Reaching New Ground… Guiding a staff to establishing Benchmark Assessments

42. Mapping Benchmark Assessments • Benchmarks can be designed on multiple levels: state tests, district, classroom tasks. • A school establishes a common set of skills needing development. • An internally generated benchmark assessment task is developed by teachers with the same protocols; the same timetable.

43. Mapping Benchmark Assessments (cont.) • The task should merge with the on-going curriculum naturally. • Student products can then be evaluated both vertically and horizontally. • Revisions in the curriculum map should reflect a few targeted skills needing help. • Revisions should be applied thoughtfully to developmental characteristics of the learner.

44. How do we develop essential (master, collaboration, consensus) maps? Wrestling with Consensus:Developing Essential Maps

45. How do we weave our individual maps into a meaningful design that will benefit all students?

46. CONSENSUS: Creating an Essential Map • Developing an essential map (sometimes referred to as a master map/collaboration map/consensus map) that eventually replaces course or grade-level guidelines • Considering each discipline separately • Identifying cross-disciplinary consensus

47. Where is consistency critical for our students’ learning?Where is flexibility equally as important?

48. Two Basic Approaches: • One: Using individual diary maps, have grade-level or course teachers develop a subject or course’s Essential Map by identifying: • The core curriculum concepts • The critical focal skills • Benchmark assessments • Common essential questions • Essential learnings/Power standards

49. Two Basic Approaches: • Two: Revising and reacting to an already existing set of guidelines, • Reviewing an agreed-upon district or school’s guidelines and modifying it so that it has a Curriculum Mapping “look” (by months, etc.); • Instructing in the individual classroom to see how the drafted Essential Map plays out • Re-visiting the first-draft Essential Map and converting it to an active Essential Map

50. Other Considerations for Developing Essential Maps • Use National and State Standards as a filter to validate. • Work with teachers to ensure that consistent terms are used K-12 • Examine K-12 Systems’ Reports to identify still-present gaps, repetitions, etc.