Creating Curriculum Maps

Your district can create curriculum maps in Aspen IMS. Curriculum maps help districts and teachers create a timeline of what is being taught and when to help analyze, communicate, and plan curriculum in your schools.

Curriculum maps help ensure that content:

  • Is not repeated
  • Is taught in the right sequence
  • Is consistent among teachers

A district might define curriculum maps for each subject for each grade in your district. For example, you might create 12 English/Language Arts curriculum maps in your district for grades K-12. Or, your district might create one curriculum map for each of the high school sciences (HS Chemistry, HS Biology, HS Physics, etc.)

Within those curriculum maps in Aspen, districts can include lesson plans, and can align each unit, topic, and lesson plan to district and state standards. Aspen is automatically subscribed to Academic Benchmarks, the preferred standards data services provider to K-12 education.

Teachers can view curriculum maps in the Staff view. On the Planner tab, they can view the curriculum map topics and any lesson plans on each day that it is defined to be covered. They can also drag and drop topics and lesson plans to different dates on their calendars to reflect their actual day-to-day schedules.

Note: If teachers make edits to the dates a topic is covered on the curriculum map on the Planner tab, any date changes made to the district map do not override the changes the teacher made to their version.

To create curriculum maps, align them to standards, and make them available to teachers in Aspen:

  1. Define the document structures, or formats of curriculum maps and lesson plans that your district uses. This is what determines the columns that appear on the curriculum map chart.
  2. Define the details of the curriculum map, including the number of days the map will cover.
  3. Design the curriculum map chart, including adding topics and lesson plans and aligning them to standards.
  4. Assign curriculum maps to district courses.
  5. Teachers can view the curriculum maps linked to their assigned sections in the Staff view.