The purpose of curriculum mapping is alignment. It should be called a curriculum ladder because the rungs builds upon each other. The main reason we map is to provide a written document for teachers so they can see what is to be taught and assessed in the classroom for that year. It's other main purpose is to show the district's goals and direction in a document. It provides the picture of the education that district is engaged in. The curriculum map also serves as a plan book. It prevents overlapping of content in varying grades and fills in the holes (skills) that teachers assume are being taught. It is also a great method for teachers to view when a skill is taught for the first time and when the skill should be reintroduced or mastered. For the teacher who differentiates ( all should) it would be a great indicator when to assess a student to compact out of that lesson and create something new.
I am one of a team of six in the district gifted and talented department. We have a curriculum map for the grades we teach......1st through 5Th. The mapping took us many months of meetings to create and we use it diligently to move through the program. Our over arching goal is that the students are engaged in higher order thinking. We formed our map to spiral from 1st to 5Th grade. The curriculum map contains the skills for each grade level with various assessment options and gives several creative ways to carry out the lessons. Every June, we go over our curriculum map with a fine tooth comb. We change our skills if we feel we are not meeting the needs of the entire five grade levels by making it a spiral curriculum. We adjust our skills taught and our assessments to meet the needs of gifted students, NJASK tests and our districts goals. I think it is a time consuming process to create but it puts the district goals in a neat package.....but the neat package is one that can be changed (or tweaked) to meet the needs of our changing world.
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You are lucky that your district is actually using curriculum mapping. It seems like a feasible way of tracking skills across the grade level as well as making the curriculum more comprehensive. My district just designed a curriculum that is so dense, I can't imagine any teacher using it for planning lessons. Just one CCCS, takes about 27 pages of detailed objectives. These are followed by what is called "evidence of students learning." This consists of endless sentences that lack a central idea or cohesion.
Although, as you mentioned, it takes time to develop a curriculum map, it's the way the districts should heading.
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