The curriculum map I created for ED 532, clearly demonstrates an improvement in my teaching practices, my mastery of program competencies, and a positive impact on student learning. Prior to creating a curriculum map, much of my teaching was trial and error, based on a predetermined curriculum that was largely teacher focused instead of student focused. This naturally resulted in behavior problems and curriculum that needed on-the-spot adjusting.
Mastery of Program Competencies
My work on the curriculum map has greatly improved the subjects I teach and how to teach those subjects to students, which is course competency number 2. The focus of my mapping on early reading skills was better targeted in the areas of linguistic foundation and the reading activities out of books. By switching the focus from a teacher-focused approach to the curriculum to a student-focused approach, I was able to make proper adjustments based on the student's response. This was also made possible through more careful planning prior to instruction each day. By having several activities to pull from to teach the early reading skills, I was able to use the most appropriate ones for that particular student. My greatest learning in this course competency is to learn from my students. This carries over into course competency number 3, which is think systematically about your practice and learn from experiences. It's expected that there will still continue to be some trial and error that occurs through learning from my experiences. However, through better reflection and collaboration better implementation of the practice will improve the way the learnings get applied.
Impact on Learning
Clearly what I am most proud of is the impact that my curriculum mapping is having on my students. I have seen a huge improvement in my learner's linguistic foundation, resulting in improved reading fluency. My students are more engaged because their instructional hour is better planned out and more targeted to what they need. Not only have I seen a huge improvement in their learning outcomes, but also in their level of focus and behavior. I spend very little time refocusing my students, which has resulted in more concepts being covered within the hour. In addition to that, my student's parents have commented on how much more their kids want to come to the program. In measuring student progress since I started using the curriculum mapping, I have seen an increase in skill level of one month more per each month in the program. While the results are still far from scientific, I am confident that the positive results will continue to improve as my ability to plan and implement improves.
