High-Impact Learning Experiences
Colleges and Universities talk about High Impact Learning experiences (often referred to as High Impact Practices, but I prefer the former), they often boast of these programs to incoming students and their families, and as instructors, we often want to believe that our course(s) impact students in significant ways.
High Impact Practices are often defined at high, general levels:
Result in deep learning
Significant engagement
Positive impact on historically underserved populations
(Kuh, 2008; Kuh & O'Donnell, 2013)
So when a school or department implements a program that is intended to result in deep learning and significant engagement, as well as improve retention of first-time college students from low-income families, it's easy for us to call that a high-impact practice. We may even look at data from course evaluations and student surveys where students tell us the class was great, the instructor was wonderful, and that they learned a lot, and retention data may show that the retention rate of First-time students who take the course is 15% higher than for those who do not, All of this, of course, supports our inclination to believe our course is a high-impact course. But is it really?
Unfortunately, most of the time, the answer is "No".
First, most efforts to develop high impact practices fall short. Political considerations, faculty's time commitment to research, and simple cognitive biases (like those noted above) often lead to superficial design, implementation, and/or evaluation. For example, many schools offer First Year Experience programs, but they are not all created equal. Some involve significant and meaningful student and staff/faculty interaction and mentorship in and outside the class, while others are limited to class time and scarce office hours. Some are designed deliberately to challenge students' perceptions, understandings, assumptions, and academic skills, while others simply offer classroom topics and minimally challenging assignments that are little more than extended orientation sessions. A similar example are Capstone courses, which are considered one of the best practices in terms of high-impact learning experiences that any and all colleges can implement. Yet many fail to ensure the degree of faculty/staff and student interaction and mentorship, the timely and meaningful feedback, or the public and evaluated performance of skill that are what help make these experiences high-impact. In these ways, that First Year Experience program and the Capstone program are high-impact in name only; they likely don't result in most students having a high-impact experience.
Second, most efforts fail to assess and evaluate the impacts of the programs above that of satisfaction and retention. Often times, these assessments are poorly designed surveys or high-level analyses of grades and retention, even though there are many aspects that influence class grades and retention other than quality of the class. A given course may improve retention numbers, and may receive great reviews on surveys and course evaluations because the instructors are fun, the course is easy, etc., but none of that is evidence of high-impact. As instructors, we are prone to want to believe our course is a high impact experience, and it's easy for us to interpret superficial data and observations to support our conclusion.
Lastly, most high impact programs fail to scale. For example, a high-impact program to help more Black students persist and graduate may be highly successful with 20 or so participants each year, but those 20 may be out of 200 or 2,000 students… Housing programs may design Resident Assistant experiences that are remarkably high-impact, but they can only employ 1-3% of the student body. The vast majority of students do not get the benefit of the program, because the department or school either cannot expand it (can't offer a job to every student) or it doesn't invest in expanding the program for whatever reasons. They still get to market the program to all their student prospects each year, though, so to many (consciously or not) the motivation or imperative to expand it is absent.
In these ways, it's very easy for us claim high-impact practices without actually delivering on them.
It can be very helpful and facilitative if we are more intentional and accountable in our design, such that we deliberately design into it the essential elements that make these experiences high-impact. The more substantively and objectively our program or course is congruent with these components, the more likely it will result in high-impact experiences.
Below are 4 main components and characteristics that make learning experiences high impact. Much of them are mentioned by Kuh (2008), Kuh & ODonnell, 2013, and in publications by the AAC&U and LEAP in their publications on the topic. But they are also peppered with nuances derived from practical experience and an effort to integrate and highlight aspects supported by learning theory.
While few programs can fulfil every single nuanced aspect of this blueprint, the greater the degree they do so, the more confident they can be in the results. In such cases, less sophisticated assessment of the outcomes carries less risk of a false positive. Conversely, when assessing programs that are farther away from adhering to this blueprint, the need for valid, robust, and thoughtful assessment becomes even more critical if we are to accurately confirm whether it delivers a high-impact learning experience or not.
Longevity - The experience must extend across time to allow ample opportunity for challenge and performance, time to process information, practice skills, reflect on and evaluate performance, as well as relate that knowledge to their current understanding and make meaning of what they are learning and experiencing. They should have enough time to integrate that knowledge and understanding with their overarching schema and understanding of the world around them.
High standards for faculty, students, and content- The expectations for everyone involved in the process must be set high, and the learning outcomes must be challenging to achieve.
Expectations for student engagement and performance should be high and challenge the student to engage beyond their comfort zone, whether in terms of the time they commit to the course, the perspectives and knowledge they are exposed to, and the skills they must learn and perform in order to succeed in the course. The level of understanding and application required of the learning outcomes should be significantly more than the superficial level of recognition and recall.
Instructors should be accountable to high standards as well in terms of their effort and success in facilitating learning, motivating and connecting with students, supporting and mentoring students, and providing frequent and substantive constructive feedback to students.
Content standards should be high as well. Content should be highly meaningful to students and expose them to substantive differences, including racial and cultural experiences, viewpoints and approaches, as well as philosophical contradictions, differing viewpoints and approaches across political, professional, economic, or religious strata, etc. Content should also include skills relevant to communication, learning strategies, and problem solving in the context of the other content, and students should be required to demonstrate those skills publicly, including writing, analysis, presenting, group roles, etc. and perhaps demonstrate some learning strategies such as memory castles, self-testing, etc.
NOTE: Ideally the student cohort possesses significant racial, ethnic, and economic diversity and that social patterns naturally and frequently engage students with others unlike them, but such is rarely the case. Thus, it's imperative that exposure to diverse perspectives, norms, lived experiences, etc. be built in by faculty/staff instructors more deliberatively and strategically in order to facilitate a high-impact learning experience.
It must involve significant time and cognitive effort - It's possible a week-long highly immersive experiences, such as a service project abroad or 2 week Winter-term course might be designed such that it results in a high-impact experience, but for the most part, experiences need to be several weeks or months long to allow enough time for students to:
Process (individually, within a group, and with instructors) information they are learning about, relate, compare, and contrast it to other knowledge and observations, etc. They also need to process the feedback they receive so they can better understanding and integrate it.
Apply and practice skills related to communication, learning strategies, and problem solving as it relates to the content.
Reflect on the content and their learning strategies, examine similarities and differences in the content or between the content and their own knowledge and perspective, evaluate the effectiveness of their learning strategies, the skills their practicing, etc. They should also reflect on the implications of the knowledge and skills they are learning.
Adjust and make changes to their learning strategies, viewpoints and conclusions, performance, etc. based on their reflection and feedback received.
Finally, they must have time to make sense of it all and integrate what they've learned, concluded, etc. with what their sense of self, their schema, and how they understand the world around them.
It must involve frequent and substantive interaction between faculty/staff and student - By design, faculty/staff instructors must engage with students in meaningful ways in and outside of class and in formal and informal contexts. These interactions should include:
Periodic, structured, and guided opportunities to reflect on their experience, integrate knowledge and skills, and examine the relevance of their learning to their lived experience, life/career goals, worldview, sense of identity, etc.
Frequent and substantive constructive feedback. A weekly number for a grade won't cut it, but thoughtful feedback 2x a week can do wonders!
Formal and informal dialogue, in group and individual settings, around matters of substance, including content not related to the experience. The more this interaction and feedback resembles mentorship the better.
Often literature and articles on High-Impact Learning Experiences provide lists of experiences that are considered as such, but it may be better to list them as experiences that could be high-impact learning experiences, since the learning is not in the name itself. Some of these include:
Capstone courses and projects
Common Intellectual Experiences
First Year Experience courses or seminars
Internships
Undergraduate research experiences
Extended and content relevant Service-based or Community-based Learning experiences
Some less common and often overlooked experiences that can be high-impact learning experiences include:
Resident Assistant (RA)Experiences
These experiences often involve intense skill training and knowledge building around student development, resource utilization, professionalism, etc. They involve significant, almost daily, interaction with faculty and staff in the form of supervision, feedback, mentoring, advising, and more. The level of responsibility these roles possess and the remarkably deep and extended opportunity to apply, receive feedback, and try again, along with the relationships formed between students and faculty/staff can be more remarkable than any academic course or experience.
Interestingly, in some ways RA experiences can extend some degree of their impact onto their residents when their roles are structured around meaningful interactions with residents instead of typical one-off programs. For a recent example, check here.
Service Learning Abroad Experiences
These experiences often involve a potent mixture of challenges, including cultural and economic differences, language barriers, and more. When combined with thoughtful structure, accompanying learning materials, and guided facilitation, along with the deeper interactions with staff/faculty chaperones and guides, these experiences can be quite cognitively challenging, emotionally moving, and life-defining.
Peer Advising and Leadership Roles
These roles, when accompanied with intensive training and active and engaged supervision, such like the RA role, these experiences can place students in the role of “near-peer expert” and provide them experiences of being the mentor, advisor, or leader. It engages them in many professional skills, including empathy and listening, analyzing and problem solving, relating, persuading, etc.
Study abroad
While extended study abroad experiences are often high-impact, it’s often the case that the high-impact is less deliberate and left to nature of the experience itself. But when Study Abroad experiences are designed around the blueprint components, they are often particularly impactful.
For additional examples and inspiration, check here.
When designing high-pact practices or evaluating the effectiveness of experiences already in place, it can be helpful to use this blueprint to evaluate the foundation and structure of the program to better ensure the desired outcomes are not only possible but made almost certain. High-impact learning experiences are not such because of what they are called. It’s because of how they are designed.