Curriculum Map: Characteristics, Parts And Functions
Curriculum maps are visual tools that allow you to organize what is going to be taught in an educational center, taking into account each subject or thematic area, age period and period of the year, whether months, quarters or semesters.
The curriculum map is presented in the form of a table and, thanks to its simple structure, it is very easy to understand and consult on future occasions. Below we will see in more depth what they are, what their characteristics are, how they are made and what functions they have.
A curriculum map is an educational tool in which the contents of the study plan are represented visually Thus, it is an element that helps teachers in the preparation and application of the school year. This tool is very useful, since it allows teachers to find inconsistencies and overlaps in some of the elements they planned to teach, or find aspects of the academic course to improve.
To prepare a curricular map, it is necessary to specify the topics and skills that you want to teach in each of the subjects and levels of the center. In this way, teachers can adapt your teaching style to the needs of the students and taking into account what the rest of the teachers teach.
The format of the curriculum map is usually that of a spreadsheet or table. Its columns show the time periods with which you want to work, while the rows include information about the topics that are going to be taught during such periods. However, this is not the only way to prepare a curricular map, since each teacher and center may consider another organization more appropriate
Features of the curriculum map
We can highlight three characteristics of curricular maps.
The most advantageous characteristic of curricular maps is that they are tools that allow all the information regarding a study plan and student needs to be represented visually and in a single document.
Thanks to this, the curriculum map It is very beneficial at an administrative level Teachers can see at a glance whether they are meeting the goals they set for themselves or whether they need to change something in their approach.
Another advantage of this point is that it is easier to understand for people outside the educational institution, such as newly arrived teachers, educational inspectors and parents of students. It is a very intuitive tool to understand.
2. Summary of important information
When making a curriculum map a lot of information has to be placed in a limited space
To do this, it is necessary to synthesize the data that is believed to be necessary and that is clear enough to help understand what is going to be taught.
3. Organized into several sections
To make them easier to understand, curricular maps are usually divided into several sections complementary, according to several criteria established by the teachers who prepare it.
The exact divisions vary in each of them, depending on the technique used to create them, although they tend to be very similar.
In this way, if you want to check what each age group has to learn at a certain point in the course, you only need to look at the section on the curriculum map and see what school objectives are described in it
Structure and parts
Although the shape of the curriculum map can vary greatly depending on what has been represented in it, the truth is that in the vast majority of cases its structure is in the form of a table or spreadsheet.
This design is, in fact, one of the aspects of curriculum maps that make them truly useful, allowing locate at a glance the data you want to consult about a student, their class or the subject in question
Generally, the columns represent time periods, such as the quarters into which the academic year is divided. Along with this, In each of the columns there are usually subdivisions representing the different teaching areas referred to in the curricular map, such as the artistic or scientific fields.
Rows
The rows usually represent the educational levels of the students to whom the classes will be taught. Normally this division is carried out according to the grades to which they belong, or based on the cycles in which they are found. In this way, some curricular maps can be divided into the years of primary, secondary, preschool… while others do so by putting them together in pairs or cycles.
You can also go a little further and make a much more detailed curriculum map, in which all the information of each of the students is captured In these cases, the rows would represent knowledge and objectives of a single student, and are more oriented towards schools with a smaller number of students or special centers.
Elaboration
When creating a curriculum map, it is necessary for teachers to have established what teaching objectives they wish to achieve. Furthermore, teachers must make an effort and collect all the necessary information to specify what they want to teach and what they have seen other teachers teach too avoiding overlaps and repetitions.
Once this is done, the teacher will only have to capture the information from each of the courses he teaches in a spreadsheet or table. When doing so, he must ensure that the result is as clear as possible to facilitate its understanding in future consultations, or to avoid misunderstandings if other teachers have to resort to that curriculum map.
As we have commented in the previous section, the organization of each curricular map can vary, whether depending on the needs of the students, the academic situation or what is going to be taught.
However, and as we have seen, The most normal thing involves dividing the table into columns based on curricular areas and time periods into which the course is divided, while the rows would contain the information of each of the educational levels taught.
Functions in the educational field
Based on what we have seen, we can specify the main functions of curricular maps as two.
Organize teaching activity
Curriculum maps usually serve, mainly, as a tool that allows teachers to organize determining what school objectives they have to achieve during the educational year.
It is common for a single teacher to have to take care of many students at different levels in their subject or subjects, which makes having a useful and clarifying tool such as the curriculum map greatly facilitate their teaching activity.
Guide to measuring results
If a curriculum map is well prepared, it is also an ideal tool for measure the results achieved during the academic year The curriculum map allows the teacher to realize at all times whether he is achieving the results he set out to achieve at the beginning of the school year.
If you have not achieved the planned objectives, you will be able to correct them in a simple way, acting and reorganizing the contents you teach in class, by having a very simple reference when reading the curriculum map.
Conclusions
As we have seen, the curricular maps They are very useful tools for teachers, allowing you to establish from the beginning what you want to achieve during the teaching process. In addition, it allows you to see if there are teachers who overlap with others in terms of the content to be taught, in addition to being tools that allow you to evaluate how the course is going and check if the initially set objectives are being achieved.
