Talking Stick - November/December 2017 - 27

Entryway to the residence hall
complex on Delaware's campus

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE

STUDENTS ENTER THE RESIDENCE HALLS PREDISPOSED TO
CINEMATIC VIEWS OF COLLEGE LIVING, AND THEY EXPECT
THEIR LEARNING TO OCCUR ONLY IN CLASSROOMS.
college experiences outside the classroom. Just as college professors begin
by defining specific goals and learning
outcomes, residence life educators
plan out what they want their students
to know and how students will demonstrate their learning - all before they
start designing the learning activities.
Colleagues across the country
testify to the success of adopting an
outcome-centered approach to their
work. At Macalester College in Saint
Paul, Minnesota, Director of Residential Life Coco Du says that this design
is the "most salient educational approach. The recognition and actualization of residential life professionals as
first and foremost educators, who provide learning via the environment of
a residential setting, is key." Consider
the traditional approach to planning a
resident assistant floor meeting. The
process may involve reviewing what
has gone well in the past, examining
residents' feedback, and maybe even
considering the personal passions
and experiences of the planner. While
valuable, these strategies may not
necessarily lead to student learning.
A Backward Design approach to this
same meeting might look like this:

First, identify desired results. What
would a resident know, understand,
or be able to do differently as a result
of participating in the floor meeting?
When determining this, consider the
goals and context of the department
and ensure that the outcome for the
session can be connected to these
goals. Second, clarify what determines
acceptable evidence. How will I know
I was successful in reaching the intended outcome? What might students
say, how might they interact, and what
might be some environmental indicators that they have reached the desired
learning I established? Third, plan
learning experiences. Based on a firm
understanding of both the outcomes
for students and how to determine
success, design the actual learning
plan. Planning the activity last will allow for close congruence between the
actual meeting and what is intended
for it.
The ability to craft effective learning
outcomes is a crucial component of
the Backward Design model. Learning
outcomes should be concise, realistic
(yet still aspirational in nature), and
measurable. A good place to start is
Bloom's taxonomy for learning objec-

tives, which arranges what educators
want students to know in a hierarchy,
describing each level and then offering
lists of active verbs that can be used in
the statement of the learning objective.
Live-in professionals have had great
success in achieving student learning
outcomes by employing Backward
Design in tandem with staple residence life strategies. As Jim Tweedy,
director of residence life and housing
at the University of Delaware in Newark, explains, "A residence hall is not
analogous to a bowl of stew, though we
often treat residence hall student learning in such a manner. We add a dash
of diversity programming for some,
a cup of alcohol education for others,
and a dash of bystander intervention
for a few more. And then imagine that
they all mix for student learning. We
need to ensure that we are purposefully planning and exploring student
learning for maximum student-bystudent reach."
Several principles and practices can
be used to guide use of the Backward
Design model. To start, focus on quality over quantity. Though learning
outcomes are necessary for guiding
one's practices, it is important to
NOVEMBER + DECEMBER 2017

Talking Stick - November/December 2017

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