Residence life and education, residential curriculum and curricular approaches, student housing, and technology.
One of the essential elements of a curricular approach is to have a regular review process in place. Peer review is one of the best ways of building buy-in for your curriculum and improving its effectiveness. Divisions and departments will approach the peer-review process differently. Some may choose to set aside a "review day" a... Continue Reading →
Occasionally divisions and departments may be called upon to provide a more formal rationale for why they pursue (or why they wish to pursue) the development of a residential curriculum or curricular approach. I developed the following to provide a succinct overview of the curricular approach, its history, the work and research that supports it,... Continue Reading →
For Pro Staff For Student Staff Roompact's "Quick Tips" series highlights ideas and suggestions you can put into your practice as either a professional staff or student staff member working in residence life and education. Click to read more from the series. Many schools are transitioning to a residential curriculum or curricular approach to their... Continue Reading →
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 →
In this episode of ResEdChat, we spend some time with Dr. Hilary Lichterman, previously from the University of South Carolina, and soon to be the Director of Housing and Residence Life at Seattle University. In this episode, we discuss our mutual love of cheese, our experience at ACUHO-I's National Housing Training Institute (NHTI), and do a deeper dive into how the COVID pandemic impacted residential curriculum in the moment as well as what it means for the future.
For Pro Staff For Student Staff Roompact's "Quick Tips" series highlights ideas and suggestions you can put into your practice as either a professional staff or student staff member working in residence life and education. Click to read more from the series. Many departments utilize intentional conversations as an educational strategy. Intentional conversations are, as... Continue Reading →
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 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 →
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 →
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 →
