Residence life and education, residential curriculum and curricular approaches, student housing, and technology.
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 →
Facilitation guides function as the “lesson plans” for delivering educational strategies in a residential curriculum or curricular approach. Facilitation guides are detailed plans that provide all of the information necessary so that anyone with the appropriate level of training and skills could execute the planned strategy. A department or division that has a fully realized a curriculum... Continue Reading →
Residence Hall Associations (RHAs) and Hall Councils are student organizations commonly found in residence halls across the United States. Typical functions for these organizations include student-lead programming, community building efforts, and representation and advocacy around issues of concern to students. When developing a curricular approach, a number of institutions have questioned what role these types of... Continue Reading →
Developing a residential curriculum or a divisional curricular approach is hard work. It takes time. It can take years to develop a curriculum that you feel is on solid footing and functioning well. The move to a curricular model is not just about identifying objectives, writing facilitation guides, and completing tasks. There is a lot... Continue Reading →
This free webinar series, hosted by Roompact in collaboration with the University of South Florida Department of Residential Education, was designed for scholar-practitioners to explore, analyze, and evaluate innovative engagement practices to enhance student success and academic excellence. This four-week series has intentionally scaffolded learning to allow subject matter experts to share strategies, techniques, and... Continue Reading →
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a unique challenge for maintaining residential education and campus community in a time of social distancing and abrupt transitions to online and hybridized learning format. The role of residential education, however, is more critical than ever. Aiding students in identifying support networks, making connections with others, and the sharing of timely and... Continue Reading →
This free webinar series, hosted by Roompact in collaboration with the University of South Florida Department of Residential Education, was designed for scholar-practitioners to explore, analyze, and evaluate innovative engagement practices to enhance student success and academic excellence. This four-week series has intentionally scaffolded learning to allow subject matter experts to share strategies, techniques, and... Continue Reading →
We're excited to release the fourth edition of our eBook on residential curriculum and curricular approaches, written by Dr. Paul Gordon Brown and sponsored by Roompact. The content is expanded from the third edition and now includes more visuals and worksheets. As before, it remains freely available for you to download and use. Whether you're... Continue Reading →
When conceiving of programmatic efforts, there can be a tendency to focus on the overall number of programs instead of their quality. For example, within residence life, many program models require that staff members must complete x number of events or programs per semester. Relying on an overall number of programs, however, ignores an important variable... Continue Reading →
Student affairs divisional curricula often evolve either from "division-to-department" or "department-to-division." In the "division-to-department" approach, a division takes the lead in developing a collective educational priority and set of learning objectives that guide curriculum development at the departmental level. In a "department-to-division" approach, it is often one constituent department that may take the lead and... Continue Reading →
As one of the essential elements of a curricular approach, assessment should occur at all levels of your curriculum. This includes on-the-ground assessment of individual learning activities, but also broader based assessment of overall curriculum effectiveness. One way of achieving this broader-based assessment is to utilize data collection instruments you may already be using and... Continue Reading →
Because a curricular approach is revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary, it is necessary that you think about organizational culture and organizational change processes before undertaking this journey. For many, this shift in approach requires the development of a learning-centric organization. An organization that moves beyond "exposure" through program attendance, and towards "learning" (Kerr & Tweedy,... Continue Reading →
Roompact doesn't just sell software, but strives to advance the field of residence life and student affairs as a whole. We often hear from our campus partners how they struggle to explain the curricular approach to staff members and stakeholders. Recognizing this need, we have worked over the past few months to develop the following... Continue Reading →
Curricular development is a complex process that involves planning and organizational change. It is a process that takes year, not months. Each institution, or within each division or department, there may be unique contextual factors that may influence the development timeline of a curricular implementation. Although it is difficult to develop a timeline that is... Continue Reading →
ACPA's Institute on the Curricular Approach (formerly the Residential Curriculum Institute) is the source for learning about applying curricular structures to your work. As a former and current Institute faculty member myself, and working for a company that is the official software sponsor, I strongly believe in the mission of the Institute and the effectiveness... Continue Reading →
At the most recent Convention of ACPA - College Student Educators International, I had the opportunity to present a PechaKucha-style presentation on residential curriculum and curricular approaches to student affairs work. In this video I discuss why we need a curricular approach, how the movement started, what curricular approaches entail, and how we can move... Continue Reading →
