The Roompact "ResLife Pro-D in a Bag" series provides all the details you'll need to create a professional development opportunity for your staff around a given topic. Each facilitation guide outlines free and open source videos to watch, articles to read, quizzes and inventories to complete, and suggested questions for discussion and activities. You can... Continue Reading →
Restorative Practices in ResLife: Organizational and Group Culture Shift
This post is one in a series about integrating Restorative Practices into a model for residential learning. Start with the introduction as a primer and explore posts on other strategies you can utilize with a restorative lens.| Introduction | Roommate Agreements | Floor Meetings & Circles | Curriculum Development | Residential Curriculum | Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
Restorative Practices in ResLife: Residential Curriculum and Curricular Approaches
This post is one in a series about integrating Restorative Practices into a model for residential learning. Start with the introduction as a primer and explore posts on other strategies you can utilize with a restorative lens.| Introduction | Roommate Agreements | Floor Meetings & Circles | Curriculum Development | Residential Curriculum | Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
Restorative Practices in ResLife: Prioritizing Connection in Intentional Conversations & Interactions
This post is one in a series about integrating Restorative Practices into a model for residential learning. Start with the introduction as a primer and explore posts on other strategies you can utilize with a restorative lens.| Introduction | Roommate Agreements | Floor Meetings & Circles | Curriculum Development | Residential Curriculum | Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
Restorative Practices in ResLife: Engaging Students by Integrating Fair Process into Assessment
This post is one in a series about integrating Restorative Practices into a model for residential learning. Start with the introduction as a primer and explore posts on other strategies you can utilize with a restorative lens.| Introduction | Roommate Agreements | Floor Meetings & Circles | Curriculum Development | Residential Curriculum | Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
An (Over?) Simplified Explanation of The Curricular Approach/Residential Curriculum Process
As a facilitator of residential curriculum and curricular approach workshops, one of the challenges I have is how to explain the process in a way that makes sense to attendees. One of the reasons this is challenging, is that curricular approaches introduce a number of new terms and use those terms in very specific ways.... Continue Reading →
Restorative Practices in ResLife: The Role of Fair Process in Curriculum Development
This post is one in a series about integrating Restorative Practices into a model for residential learning. Start with the introduction as a primer and explore posts on other strategies you can utilize with a restorative lens.| Introduction | Roommate Agreements | Floor Meetings & Circles | Curriculum Development | Residential Curriculum | Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
Restorative Practices in ResLife: From “Floor Meeting” to “Community Gathering,” Using Circles
This post is one in a series about integrating Restorative Practices into a model for residential learning. Start with the introduction as a primer and explore posts on other strategies you can utilize with a restorative lens.| Introduction | Roommate Agreements | Floor Meetings & Circles | Curriculum Development | Residential Curriculum | Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
Restorative Practices in ResLife: A Restorative Model for Residential Education and Learning
This post is one in a series about integrating Restorative Practices into a model for residential learning. Start with the introduction as a primer and explore posts on other strategies you can utilize with a restorative lens.| Introduction | Roommate Agreements | Floor Meetings & Circles | Curriculum Development | Residential Curriculum | Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
Curricular Approach Q&A: How do upperclass students fit into a curriculum?
A curricular approach is sequenced and scaffolded to follow a student's learning journey through the institution over time. Just as you need to take a 101 course before moving on to a more advanced 201 or 301 course, a co-curriculum follows this same progression. Many institutions that begin developing a curriculum focus on their first... Continue Reading →
5 “Do’s” and “Don’ts” for Student Staff Training Around Intentional Conversations
Though Intentional Conversations are meant to be casual conversations between student staff and their residents, these chats still require some degree of training and preparation. While professional staff members work to create a lesson plan or Intentional Conversation guide that models the goals and desires of their residential curriculum, significant thought should also be put... Continue Reading →
Curricular Approach Q&A: What’s the Difference Between a Facilitation Guide and Lesson Plan?
The short answer is: none. Facilitation guides and lesson plans are two terms used for the same thing. They are the detailed guides that an educator can use to implement a specific strategy. So, for example, if I were going a study skills workshop, the lesson plan or facilitation guide would list the specific outcomes... Continue Reading →
3 Res Life Quick Tips for Intentional Conversation Assessment
Roompact's "Res Life Quick Tips" series highlights ideas and suggestions you can utilize in your residence life and education practice. Take a look through our past quick tips. Many departments utilize intentional conversations as an educational strategy. Intentional conversations are, as their name suggests, touch points between a resident and a peer leader that are... Continue Reading →
3 Res Life Quick Tips for Gaining RA Buy-In for a Residential Curriculum
Roompact's "Res Life Quick Tips" series highlights ideas and suggestions you can utilize in your residence life and education practice. Take a look through our past quick tips. Transitioning to a curricular approach represents a cultural shift. A department can have well-articulated goals, outcomes, and educational plans, but a residential curriculum will never be successful... Continue Reading →
Curricular Approach Q&A: Where Can I Find Peer Institutions To Collaborate With And Benchmark?
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... Continue Reading →
Residential Curriculum Q&A: Where does Residence Life Community Building Fit Into a Curriculum?
Residential curricula are focused on student learning. Ultimately, curricular approaches primarily concern themselves with what we hope students will know and be able to do once their time with us comes to an end. Community building falls outside the learning-focus of the curriculum but it is critically important for its effectiveness. A switch to a... Continue Reading →
🦠 ResLife & Corona Episode 1: How Residential Curriculum Can Help
Much like everyone in the field, we're exploring new ways to do our work and new methods for reaching those we work for. At Roompact, we're experimenting with video and specifically how we can use a VLOG format (Video-Blog) to help engage and educate our audience. It seemed only fitting that for our first foray... Continue Reading →
Curricular Approach Q&A: Can a Curricular Approach Work on a Campus with a Large Commuter Population?
Yes. A curricular approach to student affairs work utilizes the processes and methods of teachers in the classroom and adapts it to the out-of-class setting. Setting learning objectives and planning strategies and engagements with students works regardless of whether they live on campus or not. You may need to think about your curriculum differently, however.... Continue Reading →