Page 216 - Making Instruction Work

chap 17 3/11/97 5:12 PM Page 202

202 making instruction work

Creating a Course Map

A course map is a simple graphic device through which to
communicate some of the course procedures to your students.
It shows each of the modules and the dependency relationship
between them. For example, an arrow between two units tells
students that they should first study the unit from which the
arrow leads.
A course map also tells students that they should not study
any module that has arrows leading into it before they have
mastered all the units from which the arrows originate. And it
tells them that modules shown in parallel may be studied in any
order. Here’s how to derive a course map from your hierarchy,
your experience, and your knowledge of local constraints.

1. Get out your hierarchy and put the name of each mod-
ule or skill on a quarter of a three-by-five card or scrap
of paper (the little stickies—pads of paper with self-
adhesive on one end—are ideal).

2. Push these bits and pieces around on a flipchart-size
piece of paper until they depict the same relationships
shown on your hierarchy. That’s where you begin.

3. If two or three skills are closely related and will take very
little time to learn, consider “collapsing” them into a sin-
gle module.

4. Now think about the flow of the course. For example, if
there are two skills that can be learned in any order, but
your experience tells you that one of them should be
attempted before the other, just move that module an
inch or so toward the bottom of the paper. The two skills
will still be shown as independent (there won’t be a line
between them), but the student will be guided to study
the one closest to the bottom of the page before starting
on the other.