The document discusses incorporating a residential curriculum approach into student staff training at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. It outlines how the university developed learning outcomes based on its mission and used strategies like lesson plans and structured interactions to guide student staff. A key strategy was a "Camp Residence Hall" training where student staff experienced curriculum-based programming and role modeling. Assessment found the residential curriculum approach improved learning and satisfaction for student staff training. The presenters encourage other institutions to assess current training and consider best practices for curricular-based changes.

1. Learn by Doing: Incorporating
Residential Curriculum into
Student Training
Monday, July 11, 2016

2. Presenters
Jill Rounds
805-756-9351
jrounds@calpoly.edu
Hunter Simmons
805-756-9352
hasimmon@calpoly.edu
Amanda Baker
805-756-5681
abaker05@calpoly.edu

3. Session Overview and Learning Outcomes
• Participants will be able to describe the purpose of Residential
Curriculum.
• Participants will connect how student staff training was designed
and executed through a Residential Curriculum lens.
• Participants will be able to implement curricular-based learning
into their training programs.

4. Institutional Profile
• Highly-Selective (Mean 3.92 GPA)
• ~21,000 primarily undergraduate students
– ~90% from California
– “Destination Campus”
• Comprehensive Polytechnic University
• Agriculture and STEM focused
• “Learn By Doing” is the cornerstone of the Cal Poly
education

5. University Housing Profile
• All students are part of Learning Communities
• Rapid expansion
– 2000, ~2,700 beds
– 2016, ~7,300 beds
– 2018, ~8,800 beds
• First Year Residency Requirement
• 13 RD-level staff and 111 RAs
• Historically - highly structured programmatic efforts
• 2014-15 - development of Residential Curriculum
• New Leadership: Executive Director & VPSA
• Data-driven culture in Student Affairs

6. What is a Residential Curriculum?
Residential Curriculum is a framework developed to create
intentional learning within residence halls in a structured
and sequenced manner.
The main question addressed by the residential curriculum
is, “What do we want students to learn as a result of living
on campus at Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo?”

7. 10 Essential Elements of a Residential
Curriculum:
1. Directly connected to your institution's mission (archaeological dig)
2. Learning outcomes are derived from a defined educational priority.
3. Based on research and developmental theory – not just our intuition.
4. Learning outcomes drive development of educational
strategies (mapping).
5. Programs may be one type of strategy – but are not the only one.
6. Student staff play key roles but are not the educational experts.
7. Represents sequenced learning (by-month and by-year).
8. Stakeholders are identified and involved.
9. Plan is developed through review process that includes feedback,
critique, and transparency.
10. Assessment is essential for measuring the achievement of the learning
outcomes and can be used to test the effectiveness and efficiency of strategies
for program review and accountability.
* As published by ACPA

8. Residential Curriculum Overview
• Based off of Baxter Magolda’s Theory of Self Authorship,
as well as Cal Poly’s “Learn by Doing” motto.
• 4 Themes emerged from the initiatives and missions of
campus, division, and department.
• Within themes, each has five outcomes with different
stages that the students can be in
• Overarching Goals and Specific Learning Outcomes
– Character
– Awareness
– Academics
– Life Skills

9. Residential Curriculum Strategies at
Cal Poly, SLO
• “The Blueprint” as a guiding document
– Includes structured conversations, active and passive initiatives,
social media approaches, etc.
• Foundational Interactions and Prompted talking points
and questions as a strategy, community agreements,
follow up, etc.
• Sketches/Lesson Plans as a way to guide the active and
passive strategies that the Resident Advisors use most
often.
• Resident Advisors asked “How does this relate to my job
and how do I do it with Residential Curriculum?” and we
answered!

10. Historical Student Staff Training Programs
• Two weeks with an off campus overnight retreat.
• Strong focus on team-building and tight-knit community
for RA Staff
• As the staff expanded, the overnight transitioned to on-
campus camp
• Mostly one track, lecture-style, Behind Closed Doors
capstone
• High level of surface-level returning staff involvement

11. Fall 2014 Training Student Staff at Cal Poly,
SLO
• Shorter Duration
• More Returning Staff Members
• First attempts at online “pretraining”
• Packed schedule, loss of intentionality
• Harsh student and professional staff feedback
– Clear that we needed to rethink our training efforts.

12. Training Reconsidered
• ACUHO-I’s “Developing and Refining a Resident
Assistant Training Program”
• Gathering Feedback
– Review evaluation survey data
– Ask for specific solutions at focus groups
• Reconsiderations
– Sequenced Learning
– Consistency in Messaging
– Workload for professional and student staff
– Create Returner Investment in Training
– Incorporate “Learn By Doing” through Residential Curriculum
• The Blueprint
• “Camp Residence Hall”

13. Our Process Overview
1. Professional Staff Feedback
– Guiding Questions
2. Collecting Student Staff Feedback
– Review Survey Data
– Focus Groups
3. Creation of Initial Schedule
– Begin scheduling from least to most flexible, generally external
presenters to internal presenters.
4. Final Schedule Review
– Get fresh eyes and go through training session-by-session as
your staff will experience it to identify duplication or blindspots.

14. Sample Guiding Questions
• What are the top 3-5 functions of a RA on your campus?
• What is the breakdown of your staff’s time? Is there
alignment between what RAs do and your schedule?
• Identify the 3-5 most frequent challenges your staff has.
• What is the ideal training solution to each?

15. Camp Residence Hall
• Student Staff "RA" Camp
• Overnight Curriculum experience
– “Programming” lesson plans
– Structured Intentional Interactions
• Role modeling
– Building Check In
– Community Meeting and Expectations
– Programs
– Intentional professional staff presence

16. Camp Assessment and Outcomes

17. Overall Training Outcomes
• Learning and Satisfaction
• Participation
• Curriculum Pilot Year
• Revisions for the 2016-2017 Year

18. Future Considerations
• Even Shorter Training
• Managing Departmental Change & Expansion
• Online Learning
• ACA and FLSA

19. Applications Across Institutions and
Functional Areas
• Assessing current training programs
• Best practices for implementing changes in a training
program

20. What We Learned
• Build support from your supervisory team for a new vision.
• Share your vision widely with external presenters. Explain
how this training is different and why you’re taking a curricular
approach. Be involved in developing the content for these
sessions.
• Redeveloping training is an enormous undertaking; staff
accordingly. Your staff will be keenly aware of the sessions
that were not modified from previous years.
• Develop your assessment questions to answer the questions
you wanted to know during this process.
• Communicate the importance of following the lesson plans to
all presenters. This works best when everyone at all levels is
onboard.

21. Resources
• Show what we have

22. THANK YOU!
Questions?

23. Contact Information
Jill Rounds
805-756-9351
jrounds@calpoly.edu
Hunter Simmons
805-756-9352
hasimmon@calpoly.edu
Amanda Baker
805-756-5681
abaker05@calpoly.edu