Marty Denzer/Key photo Dr. Janet Hale gives diocesan teachers examples of diary mapping at a two-day training session on curriculum mapping at St. Therese School.

Based on the research of educator Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, curriculum mapping is a process for collecting data about an actual curriculum in a format that allows a teacher to see an overview of students' learning experiences. It shows what is actually happening during the progression of a school year in terms of curriculum.

The mapping process has been in use in various parts of the country for more than a decade. Teachers in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph introduced curriculum mapping several years ago in an effort to organize, synthesize and track their instruction and assessments. Cathedral School in St. Joseph and St. Therese School in Parkville were among the first to sign on.

The first groups of diocesan teachers were introduced to the mapping process in 2005 by Dr. Janet A. Hale, a national expert on curriculum mapping. Hale was at St. Therese School earlier this school year to teach a two-day seminar on curriculum mapping to diocesan elementary and high school teachers. Teachers in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph are in the middle of the second year of a three-year curriculum mapping process. They began implementing the techniques to organize and synthesize their instruction and assessments during the 2006-2007 academic year with the help of grant money from the Goppert Foundation, State Farm Insurance, the Kemper Foundation and the Dunn Family Foundation. So far this school year, the diocesan school office has received grants totaling $26,000 from the Kemper Foundation and the Dunn Family Foundation. Associate Diocesan School Superintendent Dave Woolwine said he is awaiting final word on the renewable challenge grant from the Goppert Foundation and from State Farm.

The money will go toward funding a curriculum mapping training program, which the school office determined last year will cost a total of $255,900.

Teachers start curriculum mapping by "diary mapping," a process of keeping track of what is being taught in a curriculum on a regular basis. Over a period of time a teacher can see which elements of a curriculum worked successfully. And which didn't.

It is a process that will help determine what teachers need to work on to make their curriculum better for the students.

Pat Burbach, former principal of St. Therese School, now diocesan associate superintendent, has watched the growth process of curriculum mapping from both a teacher's viewpoint and from an administrator's. She said she was sold on the program because it gives teachers a tool by which they can evaluate a whole curriculum.

"It engenders dialogue between teachers and connects them to other teachers in the whole diocese," she said. "Teaching becomes a profession."

Brian Smith, a teacher at St. James School in St. Joseph, was quoted in a recent book, "A Guide to Curriculum Mapping," written by Dr. Hale. In the book Smith said he originally thought curriculum mapping was a flash in the pan. "I kept thinking it would simply be the latest initiative equaling a lot of work and a waste of time. Then the light bulb went on," he said. "Simply put, I now know that mapping is a tool wherein we record what we are planning to have students learn and what they have learned, in real time."

The process of mapping is never complete, Smith said. Principals and faculty frequently review what has been mapped out and define problems within the curriculum. "We found review meetings worthwhile for locating problematic areas in our curriculum," Smith said. "For example, we discovered that grades 1-3 teach a Plants Unit in the first quarter of the school year with no new learning from year to year. The conversations about this situation were inspiring and caused our curriculum to change . As a staff we were now hooked on mapping."

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