High Impact Practices

The American Association of Colleges and Universities has identified a set of "high impact practices" for higher education:

Intensive writing

Creative performance

Collaborative assignments

Undergraduate research

Community-engaged learning

Internships

Each of these is associated with at least one of the pedagogical approaches to interdisciplinary teaching discussed under Pedagogy. See also Synergies with Community Service Learning. On many pages, but especially Teaching Interdisciplinary Integration we emphasize the importance of students performing their own research while they learn strategies for interdisciplinary research.

The AAC&U has also defined Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs) as: (a) focused engagement with seminal big questions; (b) integrated across the curriculum with challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance; (c) anchored through participation with diverse communities and real-world challenges; and (d) demonstrated application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities with new settings and complex problems.

We will discuss under Designing a General Education Curriculum and elsewhere how interdisciplinarity supports a coherent approach to a university curriculum. Such a curriculum should contain several Thematic Interdisciplinary Courses; an interdisciplinary approach allows a more comprehensive understanding of "seminal big questions" within such courses.

The Bachelor of Integrated Studies Program at Weber State has pursued both high impact practices and essential learning outcomes, and assesses its program in terms of these (with impressive results).

American Association of Colleges and Universities (2005). Liberal education outcomes: A preliminary report on student achievement in college. Washington DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Peden, W. (2015). Signature work: A survey of current practices. The American Association of Colleges and Universities.Available at: www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2015/winter-spring/peden