What is a Curriculum Map?
A curriculum map is tool used to visually display where and how students progressively learn. It illustrates the relationship between a program’s sequence of courses and each program learning outcome. The more coherent the progression in learning is across the curriculum, the greater the likelihood that the students can achieve the outcomes.
At Simpson, every major is required to identify the Student Learning Outcomes for the major as well as a Curriculum Map identifying where each SLO is Introduced, Reinforced, and Mastered throughout the requirements for the major.
Why create a Curriculum Map?
This mechanism promotes continuous program improvement by helping faculty:
engage in empowering discussions and build consensus about program content,
determine where outcomes are covered in a curriculum,
identify potential gaps in the curriculum,
identify where to best gather student work for assessment,
decide if and where the outcomes need modification, and/or
use the evidence for change towards a more effective curriculum (providing students multiple opportunities to apply, practice and integrate what is learned).
What does a Curriculum Map look like?
A curriculum map is a table with the first column listing each course required in the major and the first row listing each student learning outcome (SLO). Within each cell of the matrix, faculty members determine the extent in which the student learning outcome(s) are addressed in the various courses. The visual representation allows faculty members to easily view (a) what opportunities students are given to learn about, practice and/or master each outcome, and (b) how many outcomes students are exposed to in any given course.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison breaks down the best approach to writing SLOs for both course and programs.