Curriculum mapping: Unveiling the connections among courses and program learning outcomes

The curriculum should be a living organism, constantly evolving as society, technology and education change. Long-term curriculum renovation is required to sustain coherence among learner outcomes, teaching, learning and assessment in teacher preparation programs. This process aids discovering gaps and keeping curricula up to date with new educational trends to prepare future teachers for their work. The interest in curriculum development is increasing; however, methods are still emerging particularly in teacher education where connections between the content of the course contents and program learning outcomes are often not established. Blending expertise with scholarship is important for enriching the academic experiences of student teachers. This study is specific to a course from a biology curriculum for students studying to become biology teachers, but has broader applicability. It focuses on the extent to which PLOs are embedded within the curriculum, and it also identifies some deficiencies about professional competences that are needed from prospective biology teachers. The study is structured into sub-sections that focus on current curricular design, analysis of PLOs and survey of their distribution in the programme of biology teacher education in Albania. The study also works towards enhancing some of the curriculum planning practices in teacher education.