Across the country a week or two before all students return to campus, we see housing student leaders come back early to prepare and train for the upcoming year. This often involves team building, crisis management, facetime with campus resource leaders, and hopefully some time carved out for hall preparations. After the whirlwind of the... Continue Reading →
RA Training for Residential Curriculum: Assessment Data and Exercises
The following is part of a series of blog posts addressing a number of areas related to developing a training program for RAs and student staff members working within a residential curriculum model. Posts included in this series are: An Overview Tone Setting and Basics Involving RAs and Generating Buy-In Sequencing and Planning Resources and... Continue Reading →
RA Training for Residential Curriculum: Resources and Examples
The following is part of a series of blog posts addressing a number of areas related to developing a training program for RAs and student staff members working within a residential curriculum model. Posts included in this series are: An Overview Tone Setting and Basics Involving RAs and Generating Buy-In Sequencing and Planning Resources and... Continue Reading →
RA Training for Residential Curriculum: Involving RAs and Generating Buy-In
The following is part of a series of blog posts addressing a number of areas related to developing a training program for RAs and student staff members working within a residential curriculum model. Posts included in this series are: An Overview Tone Setting and Basics Involving RAs and Generating Buy-In Sequencing and Planning Resources and... Continue Reading →
RA Training for Residential Curriculum: Tone Setting and Basics
The following is part of a series of blog posts addressing a number of areas related to developing a training program for RAs and student staff members working within a residential curriculum model. Posts included in this series are: An Overview Tone Setting and Basics Involving RAs and Generating Buy-In Sequencing and Planning Resources and... Continue Reading →
4 Tips for Developing Buy-In for Curriculum from RAs, Student Staff Members, and Student Leaders
Transitioning to a curricular approach represents a cultural shift. A department can have well-articulated goals, outcomes, and educational plans, but a residential curriculum will never be successful without the necessary cultural and organizational change that comes along with it. For residence life departments, in particular, this means preparing your student staff members for this shift,... Continue Reading →
9 Apps To Keep RAs and Student Staff Engaged During Training
Integrating digital and social media tools into student staff training programs can be an exciting and innovative way to hold your staff' members' attention. Below are some useful sites, apps, and services that you can use and some examples of how to use them. Have other ideas? Poll Everywhere http://www.polleverywhere.com (alternative: sli.do) Poll Everywhere allows you to set... Continue Reading →
ResLife Myth #4: RA Training Needs To Be Two Weeks To Be Effective
Roompact "Perspective" posts are opportunities for individual staff members to work out ideas and provide their individual thoughts and opinions on a given topic. A number of departments and institutions have recognized that as the roles of residential education staff have evolved and technology has advanced, many of the assumptions upon which training programs were... Continue Reading →
Don’t Be Creepy: Training Student Staff For Genuine Intentional Conversations
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 →
Make Your RA Training Funny With These ResLife Themed Videos
It's that time of year again! Time to plan an RA Training! We wanted to share some videos we've used in training presentations that we think you might want to use, too. There are a lot of AMAZINGLY talented folks out there who have put together some great videos, but it's hard to find the ones that... Continue Reading →