Curriculum Mapping

Curriculum mapping is a way to promote student learning in your department or program. 

The purpose of curriculum mapping is to embed some of the basic principles of learning within a curriculum.  The process of curriculum mapping prioritizes the introduction, development, and mastery of student learning outcomes in a curriculum over and against topics-based sequences. The fundamental premise is that each course in a curriculum is at the service its learning outcomes. 

At the course level this means making sure your course learning outcomes are aligned with specific assignments (demonstrations of student learning). At the department/program level this means making sure that your major-wide and minor-wide learning outcomes are aligned with required courses that will have specific assignments to measure those outcomes.

Here are four simple curriculum mapping strategies:

1. Introduce outcomes early in the curriculum. In general, if an outcome is important enough to be articulated as a department or program outcome, it should be introduced in the first 25% of the curriculum.
2. Allow students to practice and develop their knowledge and skills with increasingly complex demonstrations of learning as they move through the curriculum.
3. Assess outcomes comes towards the end of the curriculum.
4. If your curriculum includes a significant amount of electives, it may be useful to consider only the required courses in your curriculum map.

With these strategies in mind, you can prioritize the introduction, development, and mastery of the outcomes you expect students to be able to perform upon graduation.