1. Introduction to High Impact Practices
Multicultural Infusion Project Workshop
Jessica Williams & Tracy Burt
February 11, 2013
Adapted from the work of
Dr. George Kuh (Indiana University and AAC&U) & U Wisconsin Green Bay Center for Advancement in Teaching and Learning

2. Our challenge
We are being asked to grapple with a question which asks us to look inside ourselves and our practices to try and figure out how we can deliver an undergraduate experience that results in high levels of both learning and personal development for all students.
This is both a huge question and a daunting task.

3. Good news!!
There are a set of things that, if students are given the ability to do them, that have had a tremendous success at improving student learning and personal development.
These things, or practices, are the topic of the workshop today. These practices are called High Impact Practices, and as their name suggests they have a high impact on student learning both inside and outside the classroom.

4. Icebreaker in dyads
Are there any experiences that you can remember from college which were especially important to your development in your field (i.e. Math if you teach Math, in Counseling if you are a counselor)?
If so – what was that experience like and why was it an important one for your development?

5. Icebreaker in dyads
Are there any organized activities that you participated in in college which were important to your personal development?
What was that experience and how did it help your personal development?

6. Our students and jobs
One third of the US workers change their job annually
By age 38 young people today will have changed jobs times

7. What employers want
This has caused employers to stop looking at traditional methods of assessing knowledge like transcripts. They are increasingly looking to see if students can apply the knowledge they have attained in college to real world contexts.
The increasing flux from job to job and career to career has taken some focus away from content acquisition towards honing the ability to learn in diverse contexts.

8. Deeper, more integrative learning
Employers today are really looking to see whether or not students have developed deeper, more integrative learning:
Attend to the underlying meaning of information as well as content
Integrate and synthesize different ideas, sources of information
Discern patterns in evidence or phenomena
Apply knowledge in different situations

9. Essential Learning Outcomes
The AAC&U LEAP initiative has developed a set of overall Essential Learning Outcomes for 21st century college students that are informed by the views of employers, by new standards in a number of the professions, and by a multiyear dialogue with hundreds of colleges, community colleges, and universities about the aims and best practices for a twenty-first-century education.

10. Essential Learning Outcomes activity
Read through the essential learning outcomes outlined in your packet
Once you have finished reading through think of one practice that they currently use that you have believe is promising in helping students achieve high levels of learning in one of the ELOs.

11. High Impact Practices
Definition - “an investment of time and energy over an extended period that has unusually positive effects on student engagement in educationally purposeful behavior.”
George D. Kuh, “Foreward,” Five High-Impact Practices: Research on Learning Outcomes, Completion, and Quality by Jayne E. Brownell and Lynn E. Swaner, AAC&U, 2010

12. High Impact Practices Identified through Research
First-year experiences
Common intellectual experiences
Learning communities
Writing-intensive courses
Collaborative assignments and projects
Undergraduate research
Diversity/global learning
Service learning
Community-based learning
Internships
Capstone courses and projects

13. First Year Experience
Many schools now build into the curriculum first-year seminars or other programs that bring small groups of students together with faculty or staff on a regular basis. The highest-quality first-year experiences place a strong emphasis on critical inquiry, frequent writing, information literacy, collaborative learning, and other skills that develop students’ intellectual and practical competencies. First-year seminars can also involve students with cutting-edge questions in scholarship and with faculty members’ own research.

14. Common Intellectual Experiences
The older idea of a “core” curriculum has evolved into a variety of modern forms, such as a set of required common courses or a vertically organized general education program that includes advanced integrative studies and/or required participation in a learning community. These programs often combine broad themes—e.g., technology and society, global interdependence—with a variety of curricular and cocurricular options for students.

15. Learning Communities
The key goals for learning communities are to encourage integration of learning across courses and to involve students with “big questions” that matter beyond the classroom. Students take two or more linked courses as a group and work closely with one another and with their professors. Many learning communities explore a common topic and/or common readings through the lenses of different disciplines. Some deliberately link “liberal arts” and “professional courses”; others feature service learning.

16. Writing Intensive Courses
These courses emphasize writing at all levels of instruction and across the curriculum, including final-year projects. Students are encouraged to produce and revise various forms of writing for different audiences in different disciplines. The effectiveness of this repeated practice “across the curriculum” has led to parallel efforts in such areas as quantitative reasoning, oral communication, information literacy, and, on some campuses, ethical inquiry.

17. Collaborative Assignments & Projects
Collaborative learning combines two key goals: learning to work and solve problems in the company of others, and sharpening one’s own understanding by listening seriously to the insights of others, especially those with different backgrounds and life experiences. Approaches range from study groups within a course, to team-based assignments and writing, to cooperative projects and research

18. Undergraduate Research
Many colleges and universities are now providing research experiences for students in all disciplines. Undergraduate research, however, has been most prominently used in science disciplines. With strong support from the National Science Foundation and the research community, scientists are reshaping their courses to connect key concepts and questions with students’ early and active involvement in systematic investigation and research. The goal is to involve students with actively contested questions, empirical observation, cutting-edge technologies, and the sense of excitement that comes from working to answer important questions.

19. Diversity/Global Learning
Many colleges and universities now emphasize courses and programs that help students explore cultures, life experiences, and worldviews different from their own. These studies—which may address U.S. diversity, world cultures, or both—often explore “difficult differences” such as racial, ethnic, and gender inequality, or continuing struggles around the globe for human rights, freedom, and power. Frequently, intercultural studies are augmented by experiential learning in the community and/or by study abroad.

20. Service Learning, Community Based Learning
In these programs, field-based “experiential learning” with community partners is an instructional strategy—and often a required part of the course. The idea is to give students direct experience with issues they are studying in the curriculum and with ongoing efforts to analyze and solve problems in the community. A key element in these programs is the opportunity students have to both apply what they are learning in real-world settings and reflect in a classroom setting on their service experiences. These programs model the idea that giving something back to the community is an important college outcome, and that working with community partners is good preparation for citizenship, work, and life.

21. Internships
Internships are another increasingly common form of experiential learning. The idea is to provide students with direct experience in a work setting—usually related to their career interests—and to give them the benefit of supervision and coaching from professionals in the field. If the internship is taken for course credit, students complete a project or paper that is approved by a faculty member.

22. Capstone Courses & Projects
Whether they’re called “senior capstones” or some other name, these culminating experiences require students nearing the end of their college years to create a project of some sort that integrates and applies what they’ve learned. The project might be a research paper, a performance, a portfolio of “best work,” or an exhibit of artwork. Capstones are offered both in departmental programs and, increasingly, in general education as well.

23. HIPs and Equity Most students benefit Benefits can be dramatic
Historically underserved benefit most

24. Graduation Rates by Ethnicity and participation in High-Impact Practices
55%
-- 17 points. Now let’s see what happens when everyone --
gap 17
38%
Latino/a
not Latino/a

25. Graduation Rates by Ethnicity and participation in High-Impact Practices
63%
55%
49%
-- the gap is three points narrower. Here’s what you get when everyone participates --
gap 14
38% 1 1
Latino/a
not Latino/a

26. Graduation Rates by Ethnicity and participation in High-Impact Practices
68%
65%
63%
55%
49%
-- shrinks to three points. Are you ready for three or more?
gap 3
38% 1 2 1 2
Latino/a
not Latino/a

27. Graduation Rates by Ethnicity and participation in High-Impact Practices
Source: CSU Northridge Institutional Research
August, 2010
73%
68%
69%
65%
63%
55%
49%
-- the gap just flipped upside down. A couple of quick caveats: by the time you’re counting Latinos reporting three or more high-impact practices on NSSE, you’re down to a pretty small N. And while the study author tried hard to control for other variables, like academic performance prior to admission, there’s always the chance that we’re just proving the obvious, students who sign up for the good stuff are the ones who were going to graduate.
But I believe there’s something real going on here, a powerful suggestion that when we tune our educational practices away from the traditional lecture and toward the contextualized, the relevant, and the engaging, everyone wins. Big time. This to me is one answer to “toward what.” I want to be in that university.
And I want my students to. At the beginning I told you about three dimensions to this project: high-engagement practices and under-represented minorities, aspects of which are both captured in this graph. The third is to explore how state-level action can help us do better in the face of student mobility. To close off this “toward what” section I’m going to share another chart with you.
gap -4
38% 1 2 3+ 1 2 3+
Latino/a
not Latino/a

28. High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are Who Has Access to Them and Why They Matter by George D. Kuh (AAC&U 2008)

29. High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are Who Has Access to Them and Why They Matter by George D. Kuh (AAC&U 2008)

30. High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are Who Has Access to Them and Why They Matter by George D. Kuh (AAC&U 2008)

31. ELOs and HIPs activity Break up into groups of 2
Each group chose two ELOs
Brainstorm one concrete way each on how you could link a high impact practice to a curriculum to help students achieve your learning objective

32. High Impact Practices Individual Activity
Work individually on finding one way that you could incorporate a high impact practice in your work with students to help them achieve one learning outcome you have for them (whether it be one already on the books or another learning outcome you may have in mind).
Please take this time as an opportunity to begin brainstorming/mind mapping/planning on your sheet how you could incorporate this change.
What class(es) would you incorporate it in?
How would you incorporate it?
How could it enhance reaching the goals that you already have for the course?
How might it help you reach learning goals that are not currently central to your course, but could be important for student learning?