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KnowledgeBases > Video: What is Curriculum Mapping

In this YouTube video, Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs is interviewed by West Chester (Pennsylvania) East High School senior class president and "Norse Code" editor-in-chief Matt Young. Mr. Young asks Dr. Jacobs about the definition of curriculum mapping. Dr. Jacobs explains how mapping asks teachers to reveal what they are doing "operationally" on a real-time basis in the classroom and to share these maps with fellow teachers within the school and even across the district. The availability of internet-based software tools enables teachers to electronically share their maps with colleagues.

Using medical practice as an analogy, Dr. Jacobs compares the use of mapping with the evolution of computerized medical records in health care. The growing use of computerized medical records enables physicians to easily share a patient's health file with other physicians as needed. For example, if a person moves around the country or changes physicians, it would be easy for their health records to move with them. As an internet-based tool, mapping enables teachers to share with other teachers what was taught so they will know what each student should have learned during the previous school year and grade.

Dr. Jacobs points out how education is the only field where confusion exists between what is a guideline and what is operational, or happening in the classroom. As a review process, mapping enables teachers to look backward to see how students progressed. Used in conjunction with state tests, mapping provides a historical perspective on what was taught, provide tools to look backward to identify instructional gaps and opportunities for improvement, and take a look at the curriculum to see how students are being prepared for the future.

As mapping is practiced globally, Dr. Jacobs believes exporting and importing curriculum maps enables teachers to expand their teaching repertoire. Dr. Jacobs concludes by stating mapping is very different from the old ways teachers worked.

This video runs 7 minutes and 21 seconds.

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