Chapter 2
CONTENT MAP

HTTP://CONQUERINGTHECONTENT.COM/CM/INTRO

Lesson Relevance: A Content Map is a visual representation of the topics in your course. At a glance, this image will show the organization of your content and the placement of the current topic within the context of the entire course. The Content Map will also aid learners in tagging and retrieving information for your course. Novices have a difficult time understanding the structure of a body of knowledge; the Content Map will provide that structure for learners. Creating the Content Map as the initial feature of your course development process will ensure that other items you create reflect the true scaffolding of the course content.

• Recognize the need for presenting a content overview to learners.
• Differentiate between novices and experts.
• Categorize course topics to develop a Content Map.
• Decide on the most suitable format for a Content Map.
• Revise the Content Map as needed.
• Create appropriate files and folders needed for course development.
• Create a naming scheme for files and folders.

• Nilson, L. B. The Graphical Syllabus and the Outcomes Map: Communicating Your Course. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007.

• Smith, R. "Lesson 2, Content Map." Conquering the Content: A Blueprint for Online Course Design and Development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014.

• Translate chapter numbers into topic names.
• Determine the five to seven highest-priority subtopics for each topic/lesson.
• Categorize the subtopic components into five to seven segments and record these.
• Select a format for use in creating a Content Map.
• Organize topics so that they reflect the course and content structure.
• Create and complete a Content Map for your course.
• Revise the Content Map as needed.
• Create folders and subfolders to reflect the topic and subtopic structure.
• Name folders and subfolders according to topics/lessons.

• Are you able to succinctly organize and label the topics in your course content?
• Does the structure of your course content reflect the important concepts in the course?
• Are the levels of organization reflective of the body of knowledge for your content area?
• Have you decided on a naming scheme for course files?

• Creation of a Content Map that accurately represents content-knowledge scaffolding for your course
• Creation of files and folders
• Development of a naming scheme for files

CONTENT MAP OVERVIEW

A Content Map is a visual representation of the main topics covered in your course and provides learners with the big picture, organization, and context for the topics covered in your course. This Content Map anchors the structure of knowledge scaffolding in your course. It serves as a visual guide for learners that signals how the current concepts relate to other concepts you are covering. Use of a Content Map also facilitates information retrieval.

Chapter Conversion and Course Outline

We are going to begin by converting chapter numbers to topic names, which will allow us to create a further detailed outline for your course. With this detailed outline completed, next I will show you how the action of developing a Content Map can help you refine your ideas and accurately plan the structure of the course. Once we solidify the topics for your course, we can be confident that the remaining divisions developed for the course will accurately reflect the content and also the course structure.

Your next Action Item is to translate chapter numbers into topic names that you can use as anchoring points for the content in your course. You might also think of these topics as lessons. If you are accustomed to using chapter numbers as references to your content, this is one of those time-saving adjustments we're going to make so that your online content does not need to be updated whenever the book changes. It is a change that will benefit both you and your learners.

ACTION ITEM 6

Translate chapter numbers into topic names using Form 6.

FORM 6

CHAPTER CONVERSION

Form available at www.josseybass.com/go/conqueringthecontent

Don't stress if you are not completely settled on the topic names or sequence. You will have an opportunity to review those as you are completing the Content Map. Just getting a draft will help you begin to solidify your thinking. The following figure is a preliminary outline of the Begin Here lesson of Conquering the Content to serve as an example. As you can see, it is OK to have some blanks at this stage of development.

Each topic will have a selected number of subtopics, and each subtopic will have a selected number of sub-subtopics (or concepts). I recommend clumping the sub-subtopics into no more than five to seven per subtopic. I go into the reasoning for this in Lesson 5, Content, but basically it is so that learners can group the knowledge into manageable categories and more easily retrieve that information.

ACTION ITEM 7

Record the five to seven highest-priority subtopics for each lesson. Repeat this step for each of the topics in your course.

ACTION ITEM 8

Select five to seven sub-subtopics within which to organize the content for each subtopic and record these. Repeat this step for each of the subtopics in your course.

FORM 7/8

COURSE OUTLINE

Form available at www.josseybass.com/go/conqueringthecontent

Once you have captured a good draft of the topics you will be using, it is time to move to the Content Map, which will function as a graphical interface for this information.

USES OF CONTENT MAPS

In this section, we will cover the reasons for using Content Maps, how to customize them, and their recommended placement.

Reasons to Use a Content Map

There are numerous reasons to use a Content Map in your teaching. We will focus on four: reducing the gap between novices and experts, providing information retrieval cues to your learners, providing context and location within the content, and presenting a visual element that can be processed faster than text.

Novices vs. Experts

One of the main differences between novices and experts is that experts understand the filing system or organization of the knowledge. However, experts are so fully immersed in the content that they may not be cognizant of the schemata and structures for organizing their knowledge. As teachers, we are adept at assisting learners in understanding these structures. One of the most helpful things we can do is to explain the organization of the content in our course. Sometimes we just go with the system or organization that is in the...