High Impact Practices (HIPs) or Engaged Learning Practices

Eleven practices have been identified as high impact practices:

1. First-Year Experiences

2. Common Intellectual Experiences

3. Learning Communities

4. Writing-Intensive Courses

5. Collaborative Assignments and Projects

6. Undergraduate Research

7. Diversity/Global Learning

8. Service Learning, Community-Based Learning

9. Internships

10. Capstone Courses and Projects

11. ePortfolios

These high-impact practices help students engage in "deep approaches" to learning which are important because "students who use these approaches tend to earn higher grades and retain, integrate, and transfer information at higher rates” (Kuh, 2008). 

But what makes a practice “high impact”?

Characteristics of a High Quality, High Impact Practice

Below are eight characteristics (Kuh, 2013) which when incorporated into different academic practices, can engage students and have a high impact on their learning.

1. Set performance expectations at  appropriately high levels, and effectively communicate these expectations to students

2. Encourage students to invest significant and meaningful  time and effort on authentic, complex tasks over an extended period of time

3. Add meaningful interactions amongst students and between  faculty and students about  substantive matters

4. Challenge students’ ways of thinking, increase interactions with individuals with experiences and life experiences different from their own,  Experiences with diversity

5. Provide frequent, timely and constructive feedback

6. Increase periodic, structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning

7. Provide opportunities to discover relevance of learning through real-world applications, or add a real-world/authentic experience

8. Add a public demonstration of competence

For guidance on implementing any of these practices  or characteristics into your courses, contact LEARN! Academy of the VU.