Curricular map: characteristics, parts and functions

Curricular maps are visual tools that allow organizing what is going to be taught in an educational center, taking into account each subject or subject 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. Next we will see in more depth what they are, what their characteristics are, how they are made and what functions they have.

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What is a curriculum map?

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 as it allows teachers to find inconsistencies and overlaps in some of the elements that they planned to teach, or find aspects of the academic year to improve.

In order to develop a curricular map, it is necessary to specify the topics and skills that are to be taught 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 those periods. However, this is not the only way to develop a curriculum map, since it each teacher and center may consider another organization more appropriate.

Characteristics of the curriculum map

We can highlight three characteristics of curriculum maps.

1. Visually represented data

The most advantageous characteristic of curriculum maps is that they are tools that allow to represent all the information referring to a study plan and the needs of the students in a visual way and in a single document.

Thanks to this, the curricular map It is very beneficial at the administrative level. Teachers can check with just a glance if they are meeting the objectives that they had proposed or if they have to change something in their approach.

Another advantage of this point is that it is easier to understand for people outside the institution education, such as newly arrived teachers, educational inspectors, and parents of students. 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.

For this, it is necessary to synthesize the data that is considered necessary and that is clear enough to help understand what is going to be taught.

3. Organized in several sections

To make them easier to understand, the curriculum maps are usually divided into several sections. complementary, according to various 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.

• The divisions are usually made based on these three criteria:
• The fields to be taught (mathematics, language, biology...)
• The age of the students
• School period (quarters, semesters, months...)

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.

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structure and parts

Although the shape of the curricular map can vary greatly depending on what has been represented, 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 that you want to consult about a student, his class or the subject in question.

columns

Generally, the columns represent periods of time, 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 to which the curricular map refers, such as the artistic or scientific field.

rows

In the part of the rows, the educational levels of the students to whom the classes are going to be taught are usually represented. Normally this division is made according to the degrees to which they belong, or based on the cycles in which they are. In this way, some curricular maps can be divided into the years of primary, secondary, preschool... while others do it 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 reflected. In these cases, the rows would represent the knowledge and objectives of a single student, and are more oriented towards schools with fewer students or special centers.

Elaboration

When drawing up a curricular map, it is necessary for teachers to have established what teaching objectives they wish to achieve. In addition, teachers must make an effort and collect all the information necessary to specify what they want to teach and what they have seen other teachers teach as well, avoiding overlaps and repetitions.

Once this is done, the teacher will only have to capture the information from each of the courses she teaches in a spreadsheet or table. When doing this, you should make sure that the result is as clear as possible in order to make it easier to understand. in future consultations, or avoid misunderstandings if other teachers have to refer to that map curriculum.

As we have commented in the previous section, the organization of each curricular map may vary, either depending on the needs of the students, the academic situation or what is going to be teach.

However, as we have seen, the most normal involves dividing the table into columns based on curricular areas and time periods in which the course is divided, while the rows would contain the information of each one of the educational levels taught.

Functions in the educational field

Based on what we have seen, we can specify the main functions of the curricular maps as two.

Organize teaching activity

Curricular maps tend to serve, mainly, as a tool that allows teachers to organize, determining what school objectives they have to achieve during the educational course.

It is common for a single teacher to be in charge of many students of different levels in their subject or subjects, which which makes having a useful and clarifying tool such as the curricular map greatly facilitate their activity teacher.

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 curricular map allows the teacher to realize at all times if he is achieving the results that he had proposed to achieve at the beginning of the school year.

If you have not achieved the expected objectives, you can correct it in a simple way, acting and reorganizing the contents taught in class, having a very simple reference when reading the map curriculum.

conclusions

As we have seen, the curricular maps They are very useful tools for teachers., allowing to establish from the very beginning what is to be achieved 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 the fact that they are tools that allow to evaluate how the course is taking place and check if the objectives are being achieved initially raised.

Bibliographic references:

• Jacobs, H. (1998). Connections, Mapping, and Structures for Learning: Interview with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs. Independent School Magazine. National Association of Independent Schools. 57 (3).
• Hale, J. TO. (2008). A Guide to Curriculum Mapping. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. p. 145.