When author and consultant Heidi Hayes Jacobs, an expert on curriculum mapping, asked her audience whether they used mapping software, more than one-third of them raised their hands.
Jacobs expressed no surprise at this widespread use of technology to support curriculum mapping. "This isn't going away any more than e-mail and the Internet are going away," she said at her session, Update on Curriculum Mapping.
Curriculum mapping is the practice of charting—in detail—what topics are taught by each teacher during the course of a school year. When the maps are combined, it's possible to identify gaps and duplications in what students are being taught. It's also possible to ensure that the curriculum builds appropriately from year to year. Besides curriculum topics, some maps include assessments, samples of student work, or teachers' professional development plans.
Curriculum mapping makes teachers' work transparent, Jacobs noted. Each teacher should enter his work into a curriculum map, she said, and each teacher should also have access to the map of every other teacher. "Mapping is overt work, not covert activity," Jacobs said. This transparency can make mapping seem threatening, Jacobs acknowledged. But it also leads to more collegiality among teachers. "Not only do we share each other's work, we appreciate each other's work."
Curriculum mapping also becomes a key tool for sustaining professional learning communities. "Mapping becomes like an electronic town square," Jacobs said, where educators can collaborate and exchange views.