Residence life and education, residential curriculum and curricular approaches, student housing, and technology.
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 →
Moving to a curricular approach calls upon us to become better at assessing student learning. Although it may be common on a campus to have students respond to short surveys providing feedback about a program or service, it is often less common to assess student acquisition of knowledge and skills as a result of an... Continue Reading →
Because developing a residential curriculum entails refocusing your departmental efforts towards student learning, it necessarily follows that you must develop a culture of assessment. A culture of assessment is one in which decisions are data-driven and tested through the design, implementation, and review of assessment measures. As Lakos and Phipps (2004) describe it, a culture of... Continue Reading →
One of the most important aspects of developing residence hall curriculum is the establishment of assessment practices that measure student learning. The use of Bloom's Taxonomy and its related verbs can help in this regard by ensuring that the outcomes we seek to achieve are specific and measurable. But how do we actually do the... Continue Reading →
Given that the curricular approach is relatively new in student affairs circles, there is a need for tools and resources that can help campuses and departments assess the effectiveness of their efforts. I, along with Ryan Lloyd, recently had the pleasure of presenting on two such resources at the 2018 International Convention of NASPA -... Continue Reading →
Developing a culture of continuous improvement within your housing and residence life department requires one to put structures in place to gather assessment data and utilize that data to make change. Furthermore, it requires the identification and standards against which a department can compare their progress and determine and prioritize goals. Within the area of... Continue Reading →
Assessment and accountability are important features of modern student affairs work. We have always known our work was important, but we are being asked to show how what we do impacts our students in tangible ways. The topic of assessment can make people nervous. What if the programs and services we offer aren’t as effective... Continue Reading →
Rubrics are tools that are used by educators to help evaluate the learning and performance of students. They are written documents, often presented in a chart format, that help define progress and achievement levels towards various goals and performance indicators. When developing learning goals and their constituent outcomes in a residential curriculum, rubrics can help. Rubrics ensure that... Continue Reading →
At Roompact, we're committed to helping advance knowledge and research for the betterment of professional practice. To that end, we've developed a departmental self-assessment document that that is intended to be a helpful guide for schools utilizing a curricular approach to their educational efforts. The Residential Curriculum Standards Self-Assessment tool provides staff and review committees with suggested... Continue Reading →
When evaluating programs and other educational interventions with students, it is important to make a distinction between two concepts: feedback and assessment. Although the types of questions you may ask in each of these categories may differ, the overall goal is how to design and execute effective experiences for students that are engaging and achieve educational... Continue Reading →
Intentional Conversations are one-on-one meetings between student staff and their residents guided by a suggested set of questions and prompts that are developmentally appropriate and situated within the context of a resident’s experience. This post is one of a multi-part series examining and providing suggestions for residence life and education departments that utilize Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
