I am excited to announce that Timothy Christian School has not only made recent innovations in STEM, but we are also upgrading our curriculum through a digital platform known as Curriculum Trax. Curriculum Trax is a curriculum mapping program that allows teachers and administration to collaborate on what is being taught and how often it is assessed. The program also provides a solid scope and sequence so that excessive redundancy of any one topic can be a thing of the past. This software also puts standards/benchmarks at the disposal of teachers while they are creating lesson plans. It allows our teachers to move through the curriculum like one would follow a map.
I recall a time when planning trips required the driver to use a thing called a road map. For our younger folks, it was a drawing of all possible roads one could take to get to a destination. If you planned your route properly, you would take the best roads and arrive at your destination on time (if you didn’t forget to turn at the right time). Another challenge to road maps was that they were very difficult to refold. They always seemed to be upside down when you would try to catch a quick glance at your directions.
The advent of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices has taken the place of these nostalgic paper maps and made driving to parts unknown more relaxing, providing great confidence to a driver. I must admit, being able to alter one’s course (i.e. to find a local hotdog stand) with a short verbal command is much easier than stopping by the road side and spreading the paper map across the car hood.
Consider a student coming to Timothy Christian School as one on a “Learning Journey”. Curriculum mapping is laying out the learning journey that is best for the student to take them from preschool through graduation. Instituting curriculum mapping shows that we value what our teachers are doing, and that we are creating an asset for the school – a Digital Curriculum Guide.
This is an academic initiative established by our Strategic Plan. In selecting Curriculum Trak, we have opened the doors to multiple Christian schools across the United States to see how they are guiding their students. Our faculty will be able to glean new ideas from teachers in Blue Ribbon Schools in California, Alabama, Indiana, New York, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida, (and more) without getting in a car or airplane, or ever picking up the phone. As a strong academic school, TCS will be able to also provide other schools and their teachers with suggestions for excellent lesson plans. Together, we continue to improve the mission of Christian education.
For more information about Curriculum Trax please visit their website: https://www.curriculumtrak.com/curriculum-map/