Curriculum & Instruction Webinars

Join us in this two-part series of webinars, on January 11 & 18, 2022, where Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs & Dr. Marie Hubley Alcock share strategies for mapping the curriculum for a responsive learning environment. We’ll discuss designing flexible schedules and engaging learning spaces, as well as how teaching decisions about grouping of learners and professional configurations lead to effective learning.

Dr. Marie Alcock and Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs

Mapping the Curriculum for a Responsive Learning Environment

Educators throughout the world have learned lessons from the pandemic and now find schools throughout the world have shifted to a new normal, where older approaches have been reset. Our sessions in this series will provide approaches and strategies to build and expand possibilities to engage your K-12 learners to move forward. Sign up for both parts of this webinar series using the form.

Part 1: Tuesday, January 11 | 12pm PT / 3pm ET

Part 2: Tuesday, January 18 | 12pm PT / 3pm ET

This series of webinars will highlight:

How the structural nest impacts curriculum design
Effectively grouping students and professional teams to increase instructional possibilities
Different schedules and how they respond to the needs of learners
Using curriculum maps to support different kinds of instructional grouping

Did you miss Part 1 of this series? Watch a video recording on-demand and see the presentation slides before Part 2 of this series.

Speaker Details

Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs

Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs is the founder and president of Curriculum Designers. Dr. Jacobs provides professional services to schools, organizations, and agencies to create modern learning environments, upgrade curriculum, and support teaching strategies to meet the needs of contemporary learners for over 30 years. Her models on curriculum mapping and curriculum design have been featured in 13+ books and software solutions throughout the world.

Dr. Marie Hubley Alcock

Dr. Marie Alcock is the founder and president of Learning Systems Associates (LSA). Dr. Alcock has spent the last 25 years working in public and private education as a teacher, administrator, and public advocate. She has written 10+ books on the areas of curriculum, instruction, and assessment design. Her focus has been working with schools to improve student motivation, student achievement, multi-purpose mapping, instructional practices, utilization of digital tools in schools, and building summative and formative assessments.

Kynan Gallagher

Kynan Gallagher is Product Manager at Chalk, where he works with teachers and education leaders to create solutions focused on planning, organizing and analyzing curriculum. He has several years experience supporting hundreds of schools across the world in getting their curriculum mapping projects underway.

Why Curriculum Map?

Increase in student achievement. Teachers who have a better understanding of the curriculum will be more flexible in their teaching methods. They will be able to ensure their students completely understand important concepts by structuring classes around the big picture.

Create a school’s identity or persona. Curriculum maps help to create a bridge between standards and lesson plans, by bringing new resources into the classroom. This has implications on every stakeholder within the school district community. New initiatives, such as STEM or design thinking, that districts take on can be referenced directly in the curricular units to provide evidence of the work.

Encourages collaboration. Curriculum maps encourage teachers to discuss best practices and share resources, improving the overall level of teaching across the school district. Parents benefit from structured curriculum maps in that they know the exact learning targets for their children. Students are given coherent curriculum throughout the class, with a constant flow of knowledge from term to term and year to year.

Build a common resource center. Being able to capture assessments, lesson plans, and best practices within one place can improve teachers instruction. Knowledge can be easily shared from a master teacher to a new teacher. Within a curriculum map, the outcome is a comprehensive resource pool that includes hyperlinks to resources in context.

Save money on textbooks. Schools can save money by creating their own curriculum maps rather than buying them from textbook publishers. This allows for more control over what is actually being taught at the school

Learn how to map, implement, and sustain a guaranteed viable curriculum for your school. Get the FREE E-Book →

What is Chalk?

Simple and Easy to Use

Chalk is an intuitive, simple, and easy-to-use curriculum and lesson planner. Designed for the modern era, teachers appreciate the simplicity and how easy it is to adopt.

Connect C & I

Go beyond just curriculum mapping. Chalk connects your curriculum directly to lesson planning. Teachers can plan their lessons with full access to the unit and curriculum.

Real Time Collaboration

Curriculum is written and collaborated upon in teams. Chalk enables real-time collaboration when editing curriculum and units. Co-edit with teachers and staff to perfect your curriculum.

Book a demo to see how Chalk can help your school

Hear from school leaders on their journey with Chalk

Why curriculum mapping matters and how to pull it off

By Jennifer Mitchell, Curriculum and Professional Development Coordinator, Mifflin County School District

A common misconception about curriculum mapping is that teachers and administrators just need to come together once or twice a year to rewrite the curriculum, pick the resources they will use, and then they’re done. The problem with this approach is that the written curriculum will quickly fall into disuse, never to be revisited. By contrast, effective curriculum mapping entails recording what teachers are actually teaching, whether it’s aligned with standards, how it is impacting student achievement, and determining what needs to be updated and improved…

Expediting curriculum mapping in an under-resourced district

By Mike Hummel, Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, Mount Union Area School District

In our small, rural district in Huntington County, Pennsylvania, we face a number of challenges including a high rate of poverty, a rather pronounced teacher shortage, and a limited budget. Given these challenges, education technology is a resource we can’t afford to go without. For instance, just 18 months ago, we had no central place where our curriculum was housed, revised, or accessible to students or to the public. We had no effective way to track what we were teaching, whether our courses were aligned to state standards, and if teachers were adequately addressing those standards…