Curriculum Mapping

Curriculum mapping is a great idea. It is a way of making sure that all children learn the same material. Having students learn the same information is very beneficial. It is also a good way of holding teachers accountable for their classrooms, teaching, and children. When everyone is on the same page we can all benefit from it. It also allows new teachers entering the district to do so with ease. They can hop on board with their partners and teach what needs to be taught with very little confusion.

My district does not use curriculum mapping. I wish we did it makes a lot of sense too. Yes, it would be a lot of hard time consuming work, but in the end we would have a product that would be very helpful to many people. I am not exactly sure why we don't use it, but I feel the administration and the fact that we are a large district has a lot to do with it. Our administration seems to change hands quite often. With this in mind I feel that they don't realize how different one school is to the next. My district has eight elementary schools that all go up to sixth grade. Yes, some schools are bigger than others, but the majority of them have at least two sections per grade. It is hard to even sit down and have a town wide grade level meeting, how would a task like this ever get accomplished? I know in my school alone some classrooms in one grade do things quite differently from another classroom and for this reason I think having a plan all mapped out would be wonderful. I wonder how many schools in this area use curriculum mapping? I also wonder how much better or not those children who are exposed to mapping perform compared to those who aren't exposed to it?

I think that curriculum mapping does relate to the broader concept of curriculum change somewhat. I feel that with curriculum mapping the curriculum is being covered just in a different way. Each teacher is teaching the same thing with the same emphasis put on each topic. The teachers aren't deciding what is important or how important it is anymore. I feel this is a good thing. The curriculum is longer left up to the teachers opinion of what should take more time on or not. Every child needs to learn the same material so that all children are ready for the next year. One child doesn't have an advantage over another because of who their teacher was. All teachers are held accountable, therefore all children would have been exposed to the same material. We need to prepare our children for the future and taking a look at what needs to be taught is a start in the right direction.