Once you have determined your Program Learning Outcomes, you are ready to map them to the curriculum. Why mapping? A curriculum map can help both in designing and communicating the coherence (the developmental, sequential and goal-oriented nature) of your program. Think of this as a process of charting the course of your students' learning opportunities.

A curriculum map identifies where in the curriculum learning outcomes are addressed—what is taught, where and how. Or, conversely, the mapping process may help you determine whether your curriculum and learning outcomes are aligned, and may reveal gaps in your curriculum. When building the map, you might discover:

that there are learning outcomes that are not being fully addressed (or addressed at all). Consider that you might need to refine your outcomes, course design or curriculum.
when, where and how to collect assessment data. There are most likely embedded assignments or activities that you can sample to assess your outcomes.
where you can make changes for improvement after you’ve collected and analyzed assessment data.

There are many more benefits to curriculum mapping. Mapping can help you ascertain that your program design and teaching practice are:

Ensuring coherent and meaningful curriculum (course series designed to achieve outcomes)
Following good educational practice (continued, steady, systematic, incremental)
Supporting student learning and development (coherence and integration)
Documenting faculty professional responsibility (faculty intentionally cultivate and assess student learning)
Facilitating faculty collegiality (shared purpose and the scholarship of teaching and learning)
Addressing accountability issues (standards, program review, academic quality, program prioritization, budgeting)
Addressing accreditation requirements (NEASC--systematic and comprehensive)
Implementing assessment program (alignment of learning goals and curricula is critical to assessment)
Informing curriculum enhancements ("closing the loop" in assessment)
Stimulating scholarship of curriculum (scholarship of teaching and learning)
Engaging students in their own learning (developing ethical self-authors and life-long learners)

Getting Started

The purpose of the curriculum map is to identify and then illustrate the components of the program (courses) that together (curriculum) achieve the overall educational objectives. The map lays out where in the curriculum students have the opportunity to learn, practice and reinforce skills and competencies. Start with a matrix that lines up the program's required courses (curriculum) on one axis and the Program Learning Outcomes (and also College Competencies) along the other. Use the cells in the matrix to identify where students are learning, practicing and mastering skills/competencies.

How do you know which courses are designed for student development of specific program (and College) learning outcomes? Course proposals will spell out the course-, program- and College-level outcomes expected. These outcomes also should be delineated in the course syllabus. You or others who have taught these courses will know from experience the competencies and levels that students are able to achieve. Your practice as a teacher in the curricular landscape, and the exercise of mapping, may lead you to make revisions to individual courses or to the overall curriculum. Utilize the disciplinary knowledge and teaching experience of fellow instructors by collaborating with program faculty colleagues when creating the curriculum map.

Within the matrix, you may wish to differentiate the levels of students' learning opportunities with regard to a particular outcome. You can use a scale that shows the level of learning the student achieves on a mastery or competency scale by the end of the course, i.e.:

Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced
Introducing, Practicing, Mastering
Emerging, Developing, Proficient

The above examples designate developmental scales, which indicate how far a student is expected to have advanced by the end of the course toward a standard of competence or a program learning outcome.

Alternatively, you can use an intensity scale, which at indicates the degree of teaching/learning that occurs in the course:

Introduced, Practiced, Demonstrated
Introduced, Reinforced, Emphasized
Lightly covered, Moderately covered, Heavily covered

Notice how these levels can be written to express what the teacher does or what the student does. Which do you prefer?

Creating a Curriculum Map for Curriculog

A curriculum map is a necessary component of any new or revised program (or minor) curriculum proposal. It is helpful to use the template designed for the curriculum proposal originator to fill in and upload. (See the module "Launching a New Proposal" in the Curriculog Training course in Canvas for information on how to upload a file to the proposal.)

You can download the template from the Curriculog Training course competencies mapping page, or right here: Curriculog College Competencies Mapping Template.docx

Mapping the College Competencies

Champlain College was an early entrant in the development of college-level learning outcomes. In 2001, supported by a Davis Title III grant, Champlain designed its first set of seven College Competencies: Critical and Creative Thinking; Ethical Reasoning; Global Appreciation; Written Communication; Oral Communication; Quantitative Literacy; and Technology and Information Literacy. These competencies were intended to guide course curriculum development.

In 2013 the Provost commissioned an ad hoc committee to reassess the College Competencies. After a semester of study committee proposed revising the seven existing competencies by combining some and adding others that were reflective of the College's prevailing teaching methods and goals. The nine new College Competencies, approved by the Faculty Senate in March 2014, can be found on the College website.

Each program is required to demonstrate how its curriculum advances student development of the College Competencies, and this is done through curriculum mapping. The key to mapping the College Competencies is to use an intensity scale that indicates not the endpoint, but the degree to which the student is expected to advance by completing the course. Intensity is indicated on a zero-to-three scale, where "three" would indicate a potential assessment point.

IntensityMappingRubric

Program Curriculum Map Examples

Sample curriculum map from Champlain’s Environmental Policy program:

Sample curriculum map from Champlain’s Computer Networking and Cybersecurity program:

Curriculum Mapping Resources:

Cal Poly has a complete Learning Assessment Planning Guide, which includes a section on curriculum mapping and Academic Assessment Website.

Loyola Marymount's curriculum mapping guide offers examples of a few different map types.

National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. (2018, December). Mapping
learning: A toolkit. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, Author.

University of Connecticut provides a solid rationale for curriculum mapping with helpful examples and resources.

University of Hawai'i Manoa has extensive curriculum mapping resources.