Whether you’re just starting your journey towards a curricular approach or whether you’re looking to improve your current practice, connecting with peer institutions for idea generation, collaboration, and benchmarking can be incredible useful and there are a number of different avenues available to you.
One of the easiest places to begin connecting is by attending ACPA’s Institute on the Curricular Approach. At the Institute, there will be knowledgeable faculty who have studied the approach and implemented it on various campuses. You will also find over 500 participants who are at various stages in their journeys. The Institute is a great place to start.
Another way of connecting to other curricular approach institutions is by reaching out to them directly. There are two lists of institutions that might be useful. The first is the list of past Institute Showcase institutions. These institutions go through a peer review process in order to present at the Institute and are therefore typically the best exemplars to look towards. There is also an overall list of institutions who reference a residential curriculum or curricular approach on their webpages. The links with the most helpful and detailed information are listed first. Institutions with a divisional curriculum are denoted with an asterisk. Although this can help start you on your journey, a note of caution: this listing has not been peer reviewed. Just because an institution uses the label “curricular approach,” and has some evidence of work towards this process, does not necessarily mean it adheres to the essential elements of a curricular approach or does it well.
Finally, you can use social media to connect with others around curriculum. Consider joining the Residential Curriculum and Curricular Approaches Facebook Group, which is quite active. You can also follow the #ACPAICA hashtag on Twitter and other platforms during the Institute and throughout the year.
