Transforming Student Learning: Mapping the Curriculum

Classrooms are changing. They are vibrant and filled with the noise of student engagement and learning - driven by personal goals and interests - not just scheduled curriculum plans. One of the first ways that you can join in on this refreshing style of education is to "Map the Curriculum" with your students. Giving them control of their learning by choosing the learning vehicle, product, success criteria, and level of support will boost self-confidence and intensify interest - in what you need to teach them anyway. This approach would especially benefit students in Junior, Intermediate, and Senior divisions.


*You can find a downloadable Microsoft Word copy of this "Curriculum Mapping Template" on my "Teaching Resources and Ideas" website here. It is yours to alter and use as you see fit in your classroom. This copy has an area beside each numbered question for groups to fill in as their plan while in their "think tanks."


*This is a link to a "Multiple Intelligences Product Grid" (source: Dr. T. Roger Taylor, 2002) that should be attached to the back of the Group Planning Sheet for students to consult when considering the "vehicle" choices for their projects.


First, divide your students into groups that will function as "think tanks" to determine the way that the subject is best taught given the needs and interests of the groups discussing.
Guiding Questions for Groups to Discuss and Plan:


*Hand them a copy of the curriculum "Specific Expectations" for the subject chosen (e.g., language, math, science, geography, history, arts, physical education)


1. How can we learn the information needed for each topic?
*textbook, library books, movies, internet, personal interviews, what else?


2. What environments could we use to learn in?
*classroom, library, around the school, other classes (class pairing/tutoring), in the schoolyard, in the community, at home/outside of school hours, field trips, what else?


3. How should we accomplish the learning?
*whole class lesson, small group instruction (guided), individual learning/discovery, peer/paired learning, what else?


4. What products or created-activities will demonstrate the learning to others?
*use of multiple choice intelligence grid, consideration of preferred learning styles (auditory, visual, kinesthetic), consideration of individual student learning needs (from special education plans, parent communications, student conferencing), what else?


5. How will we share our learning of the material?
*written projects, oral presentations (to teacher, to whole class, in small groups), demonstrations (computer presentations, working models, puppet shows, physical activities/games), what else?


6. How will we assess our learning? What checkpoints and processes should we follow before, during and after the learning process?


*Schedule key dates for checkpoints (what often should students "check in" to measure progress and get feedback on how project is coming along?)


*What kinds of self, peer, group, parent, and teacher formative (or "assessment as learning") options to support the learning process should we use?


*What "success criteria" have we created for this project that can be used to clearly measure our success in the learning goals? What will you know when your project has been successful in its completion?


**After each "think tank" session has finished, schedule time for the groups to each share and/or present their discussions and plans for moving forward. This should help spur new ideas for future sessions on other subjects targeted.


**Choose 1 lesson a day in the first few weeks of school (or any other time) to cover a number of different subjects using this approach.


Under these conditions, the learning has shifted from your complete direction to their discovery and an increasing accountability. This is a starting point in "flipping the classroom" from one ruled by you at the blackboard to one facilitated by you and driven by student needs, interests and motivations.


Do you already hand over the planning and "curriculum reins" to the students in your classroom? If so, what strategies do you use to increase both student engagement and accountability in their learning decisions?

Ignoring Our Curriculum

A recent N.Y. Times article, "Let Kids Rule the School," describes how the Independent Project in a western Massachusetts school has shown the tremendous benefits of student-driven learning within an open-design educational model. Students in this program are required to map out their learning in a way that relinquishes teacher control and demands student facilitation. Teachers are accessed as experts and mentors in the learning process - not "key holders of curriculum knowledge."

This article addresses one possibility for a dramatic shift in our delivery of the current educational model. Giving students much broader definitions of grade expectations will allow them to participate more efficiently in their own learning. With so many point-by-point curriculum restraints, we cannot fully allow students to buy-in to the idea of being designers of their school day. Yet, no teacher can confidently abandon their carefully crafted units and classroom models to implement this kind of alternative programming approach, unless major changes take place to our educational framework.

Parents reading curriculum documents together with their children reflect a major shift in the accountability of a teacher - not to their self and administrator - but to families who access these legal resources in order to monitor how a teacher runs their class. How can we take the next step as 21st century educators, if we are constantly defending how we teach to an ever-informed community?

The only way is to ignore our curriculum.

The Ontario Curriculum should be a guideline. It should be a model of subject ideas - not a collection of required, restrictive topics. Give students the freedom to learn about what they want and have them link it to a curriculum framework that is more open and yielding. As a way of being accountable for their own educational decision-making, they will still need to conform to some sort of structure - but one that is not tied to assessment dates and reporting periods in a way that races through key ideas merely out of time constraints.

Learning is meaningful when socially-interactive and delivered in meaningful blocks of time. What could be more exciting to a student than coming to school with an idea that they want to learn more about and then being given the time and support to carry out that learning? They plan their approach. They monitor their own choice of peers for group work, evaluation and feedback. They choose the format and choice of technologies to best address their learning styles and multiple intelligences.

It is not until we take that first step into the dark that our students will finally light the way for us.


Thanks to Miss M. for another thought-provoking article to inspire the online dialogue.

"History Day"

One of the most challenging aspects of teaching today is covering the curriculum. To do this well requires a great deal of creativity and flexibility as a teacher. The growing trends of differentiated instruction and cross-curricular assignments provide a vehicle to deliver content in a new and efficient manner. Gone are the days when learning is compartmentalized as "Literacy," "Science," "Math," and "The Arts." Now we are becoming increasingly aware of the potential to capitalize on the centrality of literacy in all subjects (math too!). By incorporating literacy expectations into our social studies and other areas of the curriculum, not only are teachers able to cover more of the expectations underpinning their grade assignment; they are also able to assess students more readily in all facets of learning.

Students who were previously thought of as being weak in science or literacy, could have been weak in concentration at the part of the day that these subjects were being taught. Perhaps our 'social' students can benefit more from group work in math depending on the time it is delivered in many cases. Using a cross-curricular approach provides a path to learning that may seem unconventional in nature, but it resonates with many teachers as "learning environments" not unlike the 'common curriculum' days. One of the ways that a teacher can approach these 'environments' is to dedicate a whole school day to a theme that covers multiple curriculum areas. Instead of building formative tasks and assessments over a three-week period; try to build on these things over the course of one day and see what happens.

In my class, I have created a "History Day" before, during which students are given academic tasks for history that also touch on arts, math, literacy, gym and even social studies activities - all of which must be completed during the course of the day. It is incredible to observe how well students who struggle with transitions and separated lessons can excel during a day when you clearly state ALL of the learning expectations first thing in the morning and then give them the WHOLE DAY to complete them. The 'independent work' and 'self-regulation' themes emerge in students when they know the exact moment that work is due, and feel a sense of ownership for the product that is created by a fairness in the time-frame given. The work assigned can be worked on in any order that they prefer and some tasks that involve partners or groups have to be organized with the timeline in mind.

There are many things that 'learning environments' can offer you in meeting the demands of the curriculum - it is only a matter of plotting out your course and trying it. Only with new eyes can we recognize new solutions to old problems.