Curriculum Context Document
The final document associated with the Curriculum Mapping Process is the Context Document. This document is a companion to the Curriculum Content Matrix. The Context Document will succinctly answer most of the questions that arise through the review of the Curriculum Content Matrix.
The Context Document has three purposes.
- Understand the environment and factors that influenced the development of the Curriculum.
- Document the choices made by the Curriculum Team that are reflected in the Curriculum Map, including any deviations from expectations and rational for deviations.
- Document current issues that are not reflected in the Curriculum Map and any future concerns, considerations and a rationale to address them.
The Context Document is intended to help users of the Curriculum Map Matrix Document understand all that was considered in preparation for the mapping process, what the outcome of those considerations were and how they were applied. This understanding will provide significant guidance for future users of the Curriculum Map Matrix Document. Educators implementing a curriculum will have clarity around what considerations were made and what decisions those lead to, allowing the educator to select resources and educational activities that fulfill the intention of the Curriculum Team. Future Curriculum Teams responsible for reviewing and possibly revising a program’s curriculum will have clarity and insight into the environment, factors, and considerations that led the prior Curriculum Team developing the curriculum in that specific manor. Any changes in those overarching conditions will help the Reviewing Curriculum Team more quickly and comprehensively identify where changes may or may not be needed.
This section does not need to comprehensively detail all the discussions that took place in determining how to shape the curriculum. This section needs only describe what discussions happened and briefly their outcomes. The complete detail of these discussions will remain documented in the Exploration of Factors Document.
The second purpose of the Context Document is to detail the choices made by the Curriculum Team that are reflected in the Curriculum Map, including any deviations from expectations and any rationale for those deviations. As discussed extensively in the Curriculum Map section, this resource highlighted key sections of the Curriculum Map, their purposes, and how to complete them. The Curriculum Team will document their choices, and a rationale for each key section of the curriculum.
As also discussed previously, this resource is intended to be a starting point of best practices for Curriculum Teams. It is expected, and frankly essential, that Curriculum Teams will make effective program-specific choices that do not reflect the best practices outlined in this resource. This may be due to the prescriptive nature of the program, or flexibility of the discipline, etc. Wherever the Curriculum Team deviates from the recommended practice, the thought process behind the choice, a description of the choice, and finally a rationale for why this choice is appropriate, should be included in this section of the Context Document. It is important to note that the inclusion of rationale around deviation from best practice is not a requirement for the Curriculum Team to justify their position; it is understood that the Curriculum Team is making the best choices available given the information they have at the time. Instead, this documentation is intended to detail the thought process, change, and rationale to help future users of the curriculum understand what the change is, how it will impact the curriculum, and why it was recommended. Again, this understanding will be critical for future educators implementing the curriculum as well as future Curriculum Teams reviewing or revising the curriculum.
The third purpose of the Context Document is to detail current issues with the curriculum that are not reflected in the Curriculum Map as well as any future concerns, considerations and rationale to address them. As the Curriculum Team works to develop the Curriculum Map they may come across curricular issues that they are not able to reflect in the Curriculum Map due to the timing of the changes. As stated earlier, the Curriculum Team must decide on a curriculum mapping date and work to create a Curriculum Map that accurately reflects the curriculum as it is/was on that date. As curriculum development can take many months, the Curriculum Team may find themselves in a situation where they are developing a Curriculum Map that is knowingly out of date. This section provides the Curriculum Team with an opportunity to address any urgent curriculum concerns that became evident during the development of the Curriculum and were not reflected in the Curriculum Content Matrix.
The Curriculum Development Team may identify issues in the curriculum that they’re not able to address in this iteration. Often the examples around this include ineffective Course Learning Outcomes that need to be addressed through a formal process such as Senate or Education council. In these situations, the Curriculum Team is identifying issues for future Curriculum Teams to address. Essentially this section documents anything that changes or impacts the curriculum from the Curriculum Map date forward. In rare circumstances the Curriculum Team may choose to incorporate curriculum changes occurring following the Curriculum Map date if they are significant enough to warrant inclusion. In those cases, the Curriculum Team will describe what the change is, how it will impact the curriculum, and their rationale for including it.
Again, the Context Document is not intended to be onerous, rather it is intended to be a clear and concise document that provides guidance for interpreting the Curriculum Map succinctly. Of the three documents created during the Curriculum Mapping Process, the exploration of factors document will support the understanding and development of both the curriculum map and the context document. The Curriculum Map and Context Document will regularly be used together with the Context Document acting as a legend or guide for the visual representations expressed in the Curriculum Map Matrix Document.