Curriculum Mapping
Curriculum Mapping and the Core Curriculum at Caltech
Before you set the goals for your course, it is helpful to understand where your course fits into the larger curriculum of your division and the Institute as a whole.
Undergraduate Curriculum
Caltech has a Core Curriculum – a series of courses that all undergraduates take, regardless of their intended option. The Core Curriculum is intended to provide foundational knowledge in math, chemistry, physics, and biology that all options can build upon. Furthermore, students are required to take several years of humanities and social sciences courses, so they are able to engage in informed analysis of cultural, political and economic issues. (See the Core Curriculum graphic in Section 1.) If you will be teaching in the core, you will be responsible for helping your students to develop a strong foundation for future courses to build on. If you are teaching courses that come after the core, it might be necessary to check that your students have a strong foundation and to provide resources to them if they need a review.
Graduate Curriculum
Each option has its own graduate curriculum (rather than one for all graduate students), so it is important to talk with your division about where your course fits into the larger picture. Curriculum mapping can help with this process.
Overview of Curriculum Mapping
A curriculum map shows where within a curriculum student learning outcomes are taught and assessed. A curriculum map can be used to ensure that alignment exists between the expected learning outcomes and what is taught in a curriculum. When created for an existing curriculum, a curriculum map describes what is actually occurring in a curriculum. When created at the program-level, a curriculum map shows where program learning outcomes are taught and assessed in program courses and experiences.
Curriculum maps serve the following purposes:
- Help ensure that all program learning outcomes are adequately addressed by the curriculum.
- Help identify potential structural concerns within the curriculum.
- Help diagnose where and how to correct structural concerns
- Help document what topics are addressed and where they are covered.
Steps to Build a Curriculum Map:
- Write program learning outcomes in a separate column in the map template (see example, next page).
- Place courses and experiences in the rows on the map template.
- Complete Mapping Stage 1. Place an "X" in a cell to indicate which courses support which program learning outcomes.
- Complete Mapping Stage 2. Place an I, R, or A in a cell to indicate different developmental levels the student will experience through the curriculum.
- Introduced (I) – The skills associated with the program outcome are presented in the course. You may find this will happen in the lower-level courses in your program. There may be formative assessment (assessment that determines what students know and gives them feedback on how to improve).
- Reinforced (R) – The skills associated with the program outcome are being worked on at a level above the introductory stage and/or the skills are being developed at a deeper level. There may be formative assessment.
- Assessed (A) – Students should have developed a sufficient level of competency in the skills associated with the program outcome to have mastered them. This is where the assessment of the program learning outcome is done (or the artifact for analysis is collected). For example, a large self-directed project, thesis, or comprehensive exam.
Example:
Completing a curriculum map with your division can help you identify 1) if learning outcomes are assessed before they are introduced and reinforced; 2) if all learning outcomes are assessed; and 3) if learning outcomes are introduced in the correct order.