Friday, August 26, 2016

Curriculum Maps

Now that we all have settled into our classes, I wanted to take some time to remind teachers our expectations at OPA for curriculum maps.

During back to school week, the necessity for good curriculum maps became evident. Like all schools, we welcomed new teachers this year. They ranged from individuals with decades of classroom experience to first year teachers. One of the first things they all asked me was this: Did the teacher I am replacing have a curriculum map?

In many cases, I was able to hand over an invaluable resource to a new teacher. Having a map as a guide allowed these new teachers to hit the ground running. Unfortunately, in many cases there were no maps. This was especially problematic with elective courses because there are so many ways to cover those standards and newer teachers need to know what was done in the past and what resources are available.

Supporting new teachers is just one purpose of our curriculum maps. Others include:
- Giving each teacher a roadmap for his/her year.
- Ensuring that OPA's curriculum aligns with the state standards (remember, there are standards for every subject area including electives).
- Promoting collaboration between subject and grade level teams (maps can be used at CTT meetings).
- Allowing administration to communicate curriculum to parents while still giving teachers the freedom to design their own curricula.

So, as a reminder, we need curriculum maps submitted for all teachers and teaching TAs unless you are specifically told otherwise.

If you taught at OPA last year and are using the same maps, then please just send me a quick email letting me know you are using the maps from last year. However, if you have made changes to your maps, please send me updated ones.

If you are new to OPA, I would like a map from you during the first week of September if possible. I consider these maps living documents: they do not have to be perfect. In fact, you should tweak them throughout the year. Please do not feel you need to reinvent the wheel. Talk to your team members and me if you need guidance or samples to look at. OPA is a team and we are here to support you. If the September date is not going to work for you, please just let me know what will.

The GoogleSlide presentation I gave to new teachers and all of the map templates can be found on the Dashboard:

https://sites.google.com/a/ogdenprep.org/internal-site/documents/curriculum-pd-resources/curriculum-maps

Please let me know how I can support you with your maps. If using curriculum maps at OPA has already helped you, I would love to hear how in the comments below.



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