Learning Maps: Making Understanding Visible
How do we know when a student truly understands something?
A student might complete an assignment, answer questions correctly, or recall important facts. But does that mean they understand the bigger ideas behind the learning? This is where learning maps can help.
What Are Learning Maps?
Learning maps describe how understanding of a curriculum learning outcome can develop over time. We at AAC are forever thankful to Colleen Teske for teaching us more about this process. It has greatly impacted the work that we do!
At AAC, we use four-point learning maps that focus on increasingly sophisticated conceptual understanding rather than a checklist of isolated knowledge and skills. Each learning map begins with a big idea, or statement of conceptual understanding, that connects key concepts from the curriculum. For example, in Grade 4 Social Studies, students investigate changes in Canada’s political boundaries. The big idea is:
Changes in boundaries shape relationships.
A learning map describes how students might progress from recognizing that boundaries can change to understanding how these changes affect land, rights, governance, and relationships between groups, including impacts that continue today. Rather than simply asking whether students know about the Royal Proclamation or the Quebec Act, the map helps teachers recognize how students are making sense of the relationships between these historical events and their impacts.
Why Use Learning Maps?
Learning isn’t all or nothing. Understanding develops as students investigate, question, connect ideas, and reconsider their thinking. Learning maps provide teachers with a clearer picture of what developing understanding might look like.
They help us consider:
- What does this student currently understand?
- What evidence supports my thinking?
- How can I respond to move their learning forward?
Learning maps also help shift assessment away from collecting marks and toward recognizing and responding to student learning. And importantly, they support teacher professional judgment!
How Do We Use Learning Maps?
Start with the curriculum. Identify the key concepts within the learning outcome and consider the relationships students are expected to understand.
Develop the progression. Describe how understanding might deepen, from recognizing initial relationships to explaining and transferring understanding into new contexts.
Create opportunities for learning to become visible. This might happen through an outdoor investigation, hands-on experience, or even a conversation
Observe, listen, and respond. Use the learning map to interpret student thinking, provide feedback, and determine what learning might need to happen next.
For example, during a Grade 4 curriculum walk, students might investigate boundaries around their schoolyard and consider what would happen if those boundaries changed. As students explain who might be affected and how relationships could change, teachers gather evidence of their developing understanding. No worksheet required.
Do Students Need to See the Learning Map?
Learning maps can be valuable tools for student reflection, but they don’t need to become another checklist or be presented in their entirety before learning begins. Teachers can know the conceptual destination while giving students opportunities to investigate and uncover relationships themselves. As learning develops, students can use the map to examine evidence, recognize how their thinking has changed, and consider where their understanding might go next.
Assessment Is Part of Learning
A learning map isn’t another rubric to complete or a series of steps every student must follow. It is a tool for recognizing understanding and making informed instructional decisions. Not every student needs to be assessed during every activity, and not every learning experience needs a final product.
The goal isn’t to collect more evidence. It’s to recognize and respond to the evidence that emerges while students are learning.
When we shift our attention from task completion to conceptual understanding, assessment becomes an opportunity to connect with student thinking and support growth.