Content Maps: A Teaching and Assessment Tool for Content Knowledge

Abstract

Developing content knowledge in teachers presents a constant challenge for teacher educators. This article introduces a teaching and assessment tool called a content map, which allows teacher educators, teachers, and coaches to conceptualize the scope, sequence, and relational characteristics of the content being taught. Content maps emphasize specialized content knowledge by organizing and sequencing the instructional tasks. Content maps have a variety of uses in supporting the professional development of teachers, including serving as a tool that allows teachers to define the content to be taught in an instructional unit, a teaching tool that can be used to teach content knowledge, and an assessment tool to assess the content knowledge of preservice and inservice teachers.