NCREL Curriculum-Mapping Web site: Purpose page.

The U.S. educational system today faces a myriad of challenges to initiate and implement curriculum reform. Results from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the most extensive study of international achievement to date, provide overwhelming evidence that topics in U.S. curricula are too numerous and retained too long. Unfortunately, district administrators lack user-friendly methods to make informed decisions about curriculum.

The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) has responded by developing an interactive Web site designed to assist school districts in their reform efforts of mathematics and science curricula. In an ongoing effort to develop accessible data-driven decision-making tools, NCREL has scaled up a TIMSS curriculum survey to allow for online mapping and analysis.

The way it works: Registered users (register now) of this Web site are prompted to map out their mathematics and/or science curricula by indicating what topics are being taught at which grade level across a framework of 44 mathematics and 79 science topics. Users are then guided through a series of analyses complete with a set of displays that superimpose their curricula against that of top-achieving TIMSS nations.

The TIMSS curriculum frameworks were developed by the Survey of Mathematics and Science Opportunities (SMSO) Research Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation.

TIMSS curriculum frameworks references.

Survey of Mathematics and Science Opportunities. (1992). Science Curriculum Framework (Research Report Series 37). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University.
Survey of Mathematics and Science Opportunities. (1992). Mathematics Curriculum Framework (Research Report Series 38). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University.
Robitaille, D. F., Schmidt, W. H., Raizen, S., McKnight, C., Britton, E., & Nicol, C. (1993). Curriculum Frameworks for Mathematics and Science ( TIMSS Monograph No. 1). Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press.