What is curriculum mapping?
Curriculum mapping is a process of documenting and analyzing the structure of program, and how individual courses work together to support student success through each year of study. It involves collecting, recording and analyzing data about curriculum structure, including course and program learning outcomes, teaching methods and assessments, and levels of expectation. By effectively visualizing this data, curriculum mapping facilitates both summative program reporting for accreditation and IQAP purposes, as well as formative planning and program design and enhancement.
The CTL and ITS in collaboration have created an online Curriculum Mapping Aid (CuMA) to assist with this process: https://ctl2.uwindsor.ca/cuma. CuMA contains an archive of Senate-approved learning outcomes at the University of Windsor as well as mapping and reporting functions. To learn more about CuMA and how to use it, please review our documentation.
For further support and help with curriculum mapping, please contact Allyson Skene at the Centre for Teaching and Learning (askene@uwindsor.ca).
Why map a curriculum? What are the benefits?
Curriculum mapping has many benefits for students, individual Faculty members, for Departments and Faculties and for the Institution as a whole. Some of these include:
- Provides a visual of what is being taught, when it is being taught, and how it is being assessed
- Clarifies what students are learning, and how the courses they are taking fit into the bigger picture of their program
- Supports review and planning, and helps improve student retention, engagement and time to completion, by identifying programs strengths, gaps, bottlenecks or trouble-spots
- Improves program efficiency and use of teaching resources by enabling departments to reduce duplication
- Helps orient new instructors to course and program requirements, and how their courses fit into programs
- Engages faculty in collegial dialogue about learning and curriculum and in reflection on course outcomes, assessment strategies, and expected levels of student achievement
- Enables identification of where students have opportunities to engage in high impact practice.
How do I create a curriculum map?
Course-to-program curriculum maps can be created with a simple spreadsheet or with an online tool. The basic steps involve
- Building a grid that lists program level learning outcomes in columns and the relevant courses in rows. (Note that this layout is one standard, but if it’s easier, the courses could be put in the columns and the outcomes in the rows.)
- Marking individual cells wherever a course contributes to the achievement of the program level outcome, indicating whether that course introduces (I), reinforces (R), or is an opportunity for students to demonstrate that they have mastered (M) that knowledge, skill, or value.
- Adding details about relevant assessments.
Resources for curriculum mapping
You can find many helpful resources here to assist you in developing your curriculum maps.