stages for improvement

Curriculum mapping is an iterative and collaborative process consisting of four steps:

1. Planning and preparing
- School/district teams should review various data sources at least six months prior to beginning curriculum mapping. Careful analysis of disaggregated student achievement data helps to discover potential problems with alignment. These data can also support the need for curriculum mapping and connect mapping to school improvement goals. For this effort to be successful, it is important that schools/districts commit adequate time and resources for curriculum mapping.

2. Recording the taught curriculum and reviewing it for potential gaps and/or overlaps
- Recording the taught curriculum indicates the extent to which the content that the teacher teaches aligns with the standards and the tested curriculum at that grade. Some teachers benefit from working collaboratively in grade level, vertical, or department teams. A schoolwide review of maps identifies inconsistencies, gaps, redundancies, and integration opportunities. Teams of teachers from across the district may meet to review grade/course maps for consistency.

3. Revising and aligning the taught curriculum with standards and assessments
- After the curriculum maps are reviewed, teachers are ready to make revisions. First, teachers determine revisions needed based on gaps and repetitions identified in the map review. Teachers should also use the standards for their grade and subject area to help them in this process. Next, based on their previous data analysis of student strengths and weaknesses, teachers determine whether more instructional time or different instructional strategies are needed for these concepts and skills, and revise their maps accordingly.

4. Using student performance to validate alignment and plan for continuous curricular improvement.
- Curriculum alignment with state standards and testing is validated by student performance on classroom assessments and standardized tests. As teachers work to strengthen alignment through the mapping process, they should discuss the effects of curricular changes on student performance.To chart school improvement, schools can use benchmarks with a continuum of factors that indicate curriculum alignment. These benchmarks help schools identify their successes and plan for continuous improvement.








Much like this is Todd Ross understanding concept mapping. It follows along the same line as curriculum allignments.

Parents, teachers, school board members, and the cumminity will all be wanting to know if the path that has been chosen by the curriculum leader was the correct path. "Evolution, not revolution: working to full school participation with information skills", stated by Todd Ross. They will want to know if it has been successfull or not. If the plan has been successfull there needs to be documentation to show that success. Records of what has been implemented needs to be detailed so others know what is effective. Because staff members of schools come and go, these records are what will be used to know what successfull strategies to implement in the future.

There will need to be many steps to help construct this path to curriculum improvement. There will also need to be an action plan for renewal. The action plan will have to answer the why, what, how and when questions for the curriculum. The why will include the guiding documents, the what will go over the areas that need improvment, how will tell us the new organization to be constructed, and the when will give the evaluation criteria. This will be the overall summary of what the curriculum leader is wanting to accomplish.

An academic performance gap will show expectation and performance gaps for all to see. A comprehensive test of basic skills will help teachers understand their school's condition compared to other schools within the same district. Training dates will be set for employees to allow them to be involved in the change project and to know when their school will be recieving professional development to help with the coming change.

To implement this change staff members will need to be given the specific concepts that need to be covered by grade level. Having imploementation check list for teachers to have on hand and submitt to assure that they are teaching all concepts within the curriculum. Providing long range plans to give them guidelines to follow for teaching the concepts will help to keep teachers on the right path.

Aligning the curriculum to the state standards will keep school up to date with the change. Right now that will include moving all towards common core and providing the information and teaching strategies to assure that all teachers understand and teach using common core. Most teachers to a portion of it but may not realize all areas of common core. Providing professional development will help teacher have a better understand of what is expected of them.

Carl Jung said, "One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child." Envolving the parents and children in the plan is vital to its success. Keeping track of what works with individual students will help in the future when trying to pinpoint the successes. We need to take into account all the different areas that affect the children who this curriculum will touch.



A blueprint for school improvement should be provided to the team working on it. It should have scales, prioritiess, and deffinition and allow factult to compare the vision for improvemnt with the current practice. Using the 5 compontents will help with this:
1. Good comminicationwith school community
2. Data from needs assessments
3. Curriculum maps
4. Discussions of allignment
5. Use of standards and grade-level equivalents


There are 10 tools that will help to empower the curriculum
1. Budgets
2. Committee assignments
3. Public relations
4. Use fo technology
5. Allocation of resources
6. Curriculum design activities
7. Staff training opportunities
8. Formattign curriculum documents
9. Writing reports of progress
10. Evalualting and validating progress