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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Although each residential curriculum or curricular approach to student life should be contextualized to an institution, there are a number of non-profits and standards bodies within higher education and student affairs that can be useful in the development of learning goals and outcomes. Many of these associations provide sample statements, rubrics and other materials that... Continue Reading →
Student Affairs offices, particularly those within residence life and education, typically see a steady turn over of professionals year-to-year. When building and maintaining a curriculum, it can sometimes be a challenge to onboard new staff members who (1) may not be familiar with the model at all or (2) are not familiar with your institution’s... Continue Reading →
One of the hallmarks of curricular approaches to student learning outside the classroom is that learning is scaffolded and sequenced to follow a student’s journey through their time in college. After educators identify their learning objectives (cascading from Educational Priority, to Learning Goals, Narratives, Rubrics, and Outcomes), the next step in the process is to... Continue Reading →
Educational and curricular efforts exist in context. Furthermore, residence life and education departments do not exist on an island. When developing a campus or residential curriculum, it is important to identify partners and stakeholders early on and include them in the curriculum design process. This inclusion can include stages from planning to implementation, and throughout... Continue Reading →
Continuing down the cascade of your curriculum, one becomes more specific in the learning objectives one hopes residents will achieve. In this way, the cascade functions as nested structure includes successively more specific statements as one moves towards the level of practice. One’s educational priority is the broadest statement of learning one hopes students will... Continue Reading →
Curricular development is a complex process that involves planning and organizational change. It is a process that takes year, not months. Each institution, or within each division or department, there may be unique contextual factors that may influence the development timeline of a curricular implementation. Although it is difficult to develop a timeline that is... Continue Reading →
When encountering the curricular approach for the first time, many staff may wonder why the approach has gained such currency within student affairs and residence life and what research and data backs up and supports its use. When asking these questions, it is important to understand that the curricular approach is a model of how... Continue Reading →
Once a department or division articulates the goals, outcomes, and objectives it hopes to achieve, and they’ve undergone the work to rubric, map, and sequence these objectives, the final step in the process is the development of an overall educational plan. Educational plans function much like blueprints. As plans, they outline time-based progression through the... Continue Reading →
An important element of developing residential curriculum involves scaffolding and sequencing learning. Rubrics, or tools developed for the purposes of scoring and rating development along a scale, can be useful in this scaffolding and sequencing process. As discussed earlier, residential curriculum rubrics break down learning outcomes into successive stages of development and mastery. Although coming... Continue Reading →
Transitioning to a residential curriculum is as much about educational plan development as it is about organizational change. The reason for this is that curricular approaches are often paradigmatic change--change predicated on an entirely new set of premises. In other words, rather than just rearranging the furniture in the room, you're changing the entire room... Continue Reading →
Goals and narratives are perhaps the least appreciated, understood, and often confused components of a residential curriculum. In reviewing the cascade of learning objectives in a curriculum, one starts with an educational priority. An educational priority is a broad summary statement of what students will learn as a result of their participation in the curriculum.... Continue Reading →
Curricular approaches are more than just writing and defining learning priorities, goals, outcomes. In many ways, implementing a curricular approach is as much about organizational change as it is about defining a structure. This is one of the reasons why Kerr, Tweedy, Edwards, and Kimmel (2017) call it a "paradigm shift." The word "paradigm" is most... 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 →
There are a number of practices in residential life and education that have become commonplace, but that don't always advance our roles as educators and student affairs professionals. Over my many years in residence life, I've seen the following four ideas surface again and again. They are concepts that seem to be ingrained in our collective... Continue Reading →
One of the bedrock concepts of designing residential curricula and learning plans is the ability to write effective learning objectives. Writing effective and measurable learning objectives, however, is often more difficult than it may seem. The deeper one delves into learning theory and curricular design, the more nuanced one realizes these concepts are. One of... Continue Reading →
One of the first steps in implementing a curricular approach in the residence halls is to articulate an educational priority. Educational priorities are written statements, typically 1-3 sentences, that describe the overall mission or objective of a curriculum. These priorities should be grounded in research and scholarship as well as the institutional context of the... Continue Reading →
It's time to move beyond the clichés and towards student learning centered work in our residence halls. The residential curriculum model offers promise for conceptualizing some of our tired old practices. It's time for a curricular reboot!
When thinking about my own experience in developing a residential curriculum, I'm reminded of a wordsmithing session I had with some colleagues. We were attempting to set some broad learning goals for our curriculum and we wanted to ensure that our language encouraged critical reflection but also allowed for a diversity of viewpoints. It took us... Continue Reading →
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