Curriculum mapping aims to ensure that the assessments, tests, and other methods teachers use to evaluate learning achievement and progress are based on what has actually been taught to students and on the learning standards that the students are expected to meet in a particular course, subject area, or grade level.

 

Curriculum mapping has four goals:

• Vertical alignment: When a curriculum is vertically aligned, what students learn in one lesson, course, or grade level prepares them for the next lesson, course, or grade level. Curriculum mapping aims to ensure that teaching is purposefully structured and logically sequenced across grade levels so that students are building on what they have previously learned and learning the knowledge and skills that will progressively prepare them for more challenging, higher-level work.
• Horizontal alignment: When a curriculum is horizontally aligned, what students are learning in one ninth-grade biology course, for example, mirrors what other students are learning in a different ninth-grade Living Environment course. Curriculum mapping aims to ensure that the assessments, tests, and other methods teachers use to evaluate learning achievement and progress are based on what has actually been taught to students and on the learning standards that the students are expected to meet in a particular course, subject area, or grade level.
• Subject-area coherence: When a curriculum is coherent within a subject area—such as mathematics, science, or history—it may be aligned both within and across grade levels. Curriculum mapping for subject-area coherence aims to ensure that teachers are working toward the same learning standards in similar courses (Algebra 1, Algebra 1A, and Algebra 1B for example), and that students are also learning the same amount of content, and receiving the same quality of instruction, across subject-area courses.
• Interdisciplinary coherence: When a curriculum is coherent across multiple subject areas—such as mathematics, science, and history—it may be aligned both within and across grade levels. Curriculum mapping for interdisciplinary coherence focus on skills and work habits that students need to succeed in any academic course or discipline, such as reading skills, writing skills, technology skills, and critical thinking skills.