Residence life and education, residential curriculum and curricular approaches, student housing, and technology.
The year is kicking off, training is in the rear-view mirror, Welcome Week has flown by, and we caught our breath as we said goodbye to summer with Labor Day. Now, we are looking at the experience we are offering our students this year and wondering: how am I supposed to assess these events we... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
