Throughout the month of May, I hosted a series of conversations about applying the curricular approach in 12 different student affairs functional areas. Each conversation included two featured guests and participants sharing their questions, practices, cautions, and possibilities for creating an Educational Plan for their functional area. It was energizing, affirming, and — as always — full of insights that continue to shape my own thinking.
Many of these folks have a divisional curricular approach and are looking to build out their Educational Plans. A few teams were there to consider what a divisional curricular approach could look like in various functional areas. Whether you are considering, launching, or evolving your curricular approach, there was a lot of practical learning.
Here are 10 key lessons that emerged from these conversations that might be helpful to others creating or considering creating Educational Plans for various functional areas in a divisional curricular approach.
1. Don’t Create Departmental Learning Aims — Use One Curricular Approach
You want one set of learning aims (Ed Priority, Learning Goals, Learning Outcomes, Narratives, and Rubrics) for your curricular approach. You want one curricular approach and multiple Educational Plans within that approach. The first step in creating your Educational Plan is to NOT create your own departmental version of these learning aims. Some departments feel like they need to make their own learning aims, but this is unnecessary, lots of work, and will only get in your way.
2. Avoid Perfectionism: Don’t Let Perfect Be the Enemy of Good
You don’t have to wait until everything is flawless to begin. Curricular work is iterative — a living process of design, implementation, reflection, and revision. Start with a solid “good,” and keep growing from there.
3. Design for the Ideal, Build in Reality
Aim high — design your approach around what could be possible, not just what’s currently manageable. But then, design and build within the realities of budgets, buildings, staffing, obstacles, and more.
4. Rubrics Sequence the Learning — Sequencing Charts Sequences the Engagement
Rubrics outline the various levels and pathways toward learning a concept or idea in the learning outcomes, often breaking it down into 3-4 steps. Sequencing charts map how we will developmentally engage students to achieve the learning.
5. From the Wilderness to a True Curricular Approach
At times, folks are not sure what strategies to use to engage, so they just let staff (student and professional) wing it. This is not a true curricular approach, and it can be a useful way to discover what works and what doesn’t, narrow the options for the future, and learn which of these options work better than others. If done with intentionality and assessment, this can lead you to a true curricular approach, building on the innovation of those staff who were willing to experiment.
6. Backward Design
Begin with the end in mind. One of the easiest things to say about a curricular approach is that the learning outcomes should guide the strategies. It’s so clear, intuitive, and obvious. It is also the most challenging part to practice. Instead of asking, “What do we do? What do students experience? What learning goals align?” we ask, “What do we want students to learn? What do they need to experience to learn that? What do we need to do to engage them in those experiences?”
7. Choose Learning Outcomes to Guide How You Think and Rethink Your Work
At the departmental level, you want to choose from the divisional learning outcomes. You don’t want to identify all of the ones you touch on – you’ll end up identifying all of them. Although this is impressive and can feel robust, it will not give you the guidance, direction, and focus you need. Instead, choose only the outcomes that should guide how you think and rethink your work. You want as few learning outcomes as you can, while making sure you have all the ones you need.
8. You Don’t Have to Change Everything — But You Do Have to Rethink Everything
Curricular work doesn’t mean throwing out all existing programs. But it does mean taking a critical, courageous look at what you’re doing and why. Even if the strategy remains, rethinking ensures that the intention is clear, aligned, and student-centered.
9. Systematizing Can Help Us Be More Personalized
It sounds paradoxical, but the more we clarify our aims and align our actions and do so systematically where it can serve us, the more space we create for individualized connection. If there are things we say to every student we meet with, why isn’t that captured in a video and shared with the student to watch before they meet with us? Are there categories of meetings or correspondence that could be systematized to allow us to communicate more effectively and have more time to meet with students?
10. Let Reactive Busyness Inform Proactive Strategies
We engage in so much student affairs work that is responsive to crises, needs, and events. We’ll never get rid of this, and a curricular approach can help us be more proactive in addressing the issues and reducing the volume of our need to be responsive. A Curricular Approach helps us proactively design learning experiences that anticipate and support development before resource-intensive intervention is needed, which is better for staff and the students.
Considering, Launching, or Evolving?
These lessons are helpful if you are considering, launching, or evolving your divisional curricular approach.
If you are considering, let’s connect about a Foundations workshop to help inform your team, get buy-in, and decide whether you’re ready to move forward.
If you are launching your curricular approach, let’s discuss how a workshop series (virtual, in-person, or both) can help your whole team become intentional, clear, aligned, and integrated.
If you are evolving your curricular approach, let’s connect about joining the cohort of 15-20 schools I bring together for ongoing support. This group gets monthly campus coaching from me; comes together each month to share challenges, practices, and ideas; and receives a short video curricular approach highlight each month on innovative practices and ideas related to a curricular approach.
