High Impact Practices (HIPs)

Instruc­tors have hun­dreds of teach­ing prac­tices, meth­ods, strate­gies, activ­i­ties and tools for teach­ing. Some of these prac­tices work best in a spe­cif­ic dis­ci­pline (often called sig­na­ture ped­a­go­gies). Some of these teach­ing prac­tices work best for a giv­en teach­ing sit­u­a­tion. Oth­er prac­tices might work for stu­dents at spe­cif­ic devel­op­ment or learn­ing lev­els. And some prac­tices might suit the teach­ing style of an instruc­tor.

Exten­sive research has estab­lished that some teach­ing prac­tices have a high­er impact than oth­ers in that they lead to deep­er approach­es to learn­ing. Using a deep­er approach to learn­ing means that “stu­dents who use these approach­es tend to earn high­er grades and retain, inte­grate and trans­fer infor­ma­tion at high­er rates” (Kuh, 2008). Instruc­tors should pay atten­tion to these evi­dence-based prac­tices because they are shown to get a high­er rate of engage­ment, per­sis­tence, and aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments.

These prac­tices are called high impact prac­tices (HIPs). Orig­i­nal­ly 10 in num­ber, but updat­ed in 2013 to include one more, there are now 11 spe­cif­ic and high impact teach­ing and learn­ing prac­tices that instruc­tors can incor­po­rate into any course or pro­gram. Mul­ti­ple HIPs can be incor­po­rat­ed into one course or can be con­tained with­in one activ­i­ty in a course or an entire course can be designed around a prac­tice.

HIPs are “tech­niques and designs for teach­ing and learn­ing that have proven to be ben­e­fi­cial for stu­dent engage­ment and suc­cess­ful learn­ing among stu­dents from many back­grounds. Through inten­tion­al pro­gram design and advanced ped­a­gogy, these types of prac­tices can enhance stu­dent learn­ing and work to nar­row gaps in achieve­ment across stu­dent pop­u­la­tions.”

These prac­tices are called high impact because they have exten­sive research shown to improve stu­dent suc­cess par­tic­u­lar­ly in enhanced aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments, engage­ment in edu­ca­tion­al­ly pur­pose­ful activ­i­ties, increase stu­dent sat­is­fac­tion and con­tribute to greater per­sis­tence and reten­tion rates in cours­es and pro­grams. HIPs also have been shown to increase the par­tic­i­pa­tion rate of under­rep­re­sent­ed stu­dents (e.g., Indige­nous, gen­der-diverse, stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties, eco­nom­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­taged stu­dents, etc.) Many of these prac­tices work in any dis­ci­pline or sub­ject area regard­less of size or loca­tion of the insti­tu­tion.

George Kuh, found­ing direc­tor of the Nation­al Sur­vey of Stu­dent Engage­ment (NSSE), found 10 prac­tices through his research on stu­dent engage­ment. The NSSE sur­vey still is offered in the US and Cana­da for insti­tu­tions to be a part of — includ­ing Van­cou­ver Island Uni­ver­si­ty. See their report and com­par­i­son to oth­er BC insti­tu­tions on the key HIPs.

His sem­i­nal report writ­ten in 2008, “High-Impact Edu­ca­tion­al Prac­tices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them and Why They Mat­ter, out­lines the HIPs and their essen­tial com­po­nents. In 2016, Kuh added an 11th prac­tice — ePort­fo­lios.

11 High Impact Practices
1. First-year sem­i­nars 2. Com­mon intel­lec­tu­al expe­ri­ences (core cur­ricu­lum) 3. Learn­ing com­mu­ni­ties 4. Writ­ing inten­sive cours­es
5. Col­lab­o­ra­tive assign­ments and projects 6. Under­grad­u­ate research oppor­tu­ni­ties 7. Diver­si­ty ori­ent­ed and glob­al­ly focused learn­ing 8. Ser­vice learn­ing and com­mu­ni­ty-based learn­ing
9. Intern­ships /co-op /practicum 10. Cap­stone courses/projects 11. Dig­i­tal or e‑portfolios

All 11 of these prac­tices share some key ele­ments that con­tribute to deep­er learn­ing. Kuh, O’Don­nell and Schnei­der (2017) iden­ti­fied eight key ele­ments com­mon among all the high-impact prac­tices.

Common Elements
  • High Lev­el: stu­den­t’s per­for­mance expec­ta­tions are set at an appro­pri­ate­ly high lev­el
  • Inter­ac­tive: require mean­ing inter­ac­tions with instruc­tors and peers, oppor­tu­ni­ties to build rela­tion­ships, pro­vides men­tor­ship and allows for shar­ing of intel­lec­tu­al inter­ests on an ongo­ing basis in or out of the class­room
  • Effort­ful: require sig­nif­i­cant stu­dent time and effort to fos­ter an invest­ment and com­mit­ment to course, pro­gram or insti­tu­tion over an extend­ed peri­od of time
  • Rich and Fre­quent Feed­back: allow for fre­quent, time­ly and con­struc­tive feed­back — so stu­dents can see their progress and suc­cess
  • Appli­ca­tion: pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the appli­ca­tion of knowl­edge and skills in dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ments par­tic­u­lar­ly ‘real world’ — using acquired knowl­edge in dif­fer­ent set­tings gives mean­ing and val­ue to learn­ing expe­ri­ences
  • Pub­lic Demon­stra­tions: stu­dents must demon­strate their com­pe­tence pub­licly
  • Explore Diver­si­ty: stu­dents explore cul­tures, life expe­ri­ences and world­views dif­fer­ent than their own
  • Reflec­tion: stu­dents are pro­vid­ed with peri­od­ic, inten­tions and struc­tured oppor­tu­ni­ties for per­son­al reflec­tions — reflect­ing on learn­ing expe­ri­ences can increase a stu­den­t’s aware­ness of their own beliefs and assump­tions

Video (5 min­utes): George Kuh explain­ing key fea­tures of HIPs. Direct video link or embed­ded below.

In this 4‑minute video, George explains why dig­i­tal port­fo­lios are a high impact prac­tice. Direct video link or embed­ded below.

It is impor­tant to note that high impact prac­tices and expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing are not the same. Sev­er­al HIPs can be devel­oped as expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties but they must be fur­ther designed to demon­strate all the spe­cif­ic attrib­ut­es of expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing too.

Where to Start?
  1. Review the com­po­nents on this page and access some of the teach­ing and learn­ing web­sites list­ed below.
  2. Read the sem­i­nal doc­u­ment to learn more: Kuh, George D. (2008). High-Impact Edu­ca­tion­al Prac­tices: What they are, Who has Access to Them and Why they Matter.Washington, DC: Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­can Col­leges & Uni­ver­si­ties. Link 
  3. Con­sid­er one or two of your course learn­ing out­comes to ascer­tain which HIPs might align best.
  4. Vis­it CTLI for a con­ver­sa­tion about how you could build a HIP into your course or pro­gram!
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