Skip to main content

What are High-Impact Practices

 

Integrating High-Impact Practices at UHD

In support of the Impact Learning Office (ILO), the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence supports faculty with workshops and resources on implementing High-Impact Practices (HIPs). Much of the HIPs infrastructure and culture at UHD grew from the work of the original HIPs Committee and then the CTLE HIPs Subcommittee. These committees were dissolved prior to the launch of ILO. Our continued focus is to achieve the UHD goal of providing more students with high-impact educational experiences. Ideal implementations of HIPs generally incorporate many of the elements listed below.

Background Information: What are High-Impact Practices?

High-Impact Practices are active and intentional teaching and learning practices that:

  • Promote student engagement and deep learning in the context of a coherent, academically challenging curriculum.
  • Heighten student achievement in meeting essential academic (i.e., course or program) or professional outcomes.
  • Increase student retention and persistence to graduation.

In addition, High-Impact Practices generally:

  • Involve a greater investment of time, effort, and purposeful attention to learning.
  • Allow students to interact with faculty, staff, and peers concerning substantive matters, and build sustained, substantive relationships.
  • Allow students to experience diversity and engage people across their differences.
  • Involve a student-centered approach to the curriculum or development of competencies.
  • Involve frequent and substantive feedback for students.
  • Provide opportunities for students to discover the relevance of, and apply, integrate and synthesize knowledge gained in and out of the classroom within the context of real-world applications and new situations.
  • Provide the opportunity for students to be meta-cognitive and reflect on their experiences and the person they are becoming.

For additional information on High-Impact Practices, consult documents found at: