Like every endeavor, understanding and implementing a curricular approach to residential life and student affairs is a journey. That journey, like most learning, is often a messy process. Although there is an Institute, a number of resources that can help guide you, and trainers and consultants that can help, connecting with peers and sharing challenges and successes is an important part of the process. As such, there are a couple of online learning communities you can join that can help.
There are two Facebook Groups that are focused on issues within residence life and student affairs where members frequently have discussions and share resources. For those of you in residence life, the more generic ResLife Professionals Group has topics that range from the operational to the educational. There is also a dedicated Group just for those focused on curricular approaches more broadly. Both represent great ways to connect.
Another community exists on Twitter. Centered around the hashtag used during ACPA’s Institute on the Curricular Approach (formerly the Residential Curriculum Institute), you will find professional development and like-minded educators interacting on the #ACPARCI hashtag on Twitter. The hashtag is active year-round, but is particularly active during the Institute itself, which typically occurs in mid-October. We’ve curated some of the tweets here:
2018
- Recapping Day 1 of the 2018 Institute on the Curricular Approach
- Recapping Day 2 of the 2018 Institute on the Curricular Approach
- Recapping Day 3 of the 2018 Institute on the Curricular Approach
2017
- Recapping Day 1 of the 2017 Residential Curriculum Institute
- Recapping Day 2 of the 2017 Residential Curriculum Institute
- Recapping Day 3 of the 2017 Residential Curriculum Institute
- #ACPARCI 2017 by Erin Simpson (PDF)
2016
- Recapping Day 1 of the 2016 Residential Curriculum Institute
- Recapping Day 2 of the 2016 Residential Curriculum Institute
- Recapping Day 3 of the 2016 Residential Curriculum Institute
2014
- #ACPARCI 2014 Day 1 Twitter Recap
- #ACPARCI 2014 Day 2 Twitter Recap
- #ACPARCI 2014 Day 3 Twitter Recap
Have more online resources to share? Please let us know. We’re constantly looking to help professionals connect around these and other issues. You can always go to residentialcurriculum.com or curricularapproach.com to find the latest.