What are High-Impact Practices?

Are you interested in using a High Impact Practice (HIP) into your course? For a practice to be considered an AAC&U recognized HIP, it has to meet certain criteria. Read more about HIP criteria below!

• Set challenging but achievable goals

  Set challenging but achievable goals

  You should align your course expectations and outcomes with your students’ abilities. Design assignments, discussions, and evaluations to suit their level (introductory, intermediate, or advanced) and sequence the course to meet students where they are and promote their growth. In other words, set challenging but achievable goals. 

  Example: Creating assignments and rubrics that require students to demonstrate learning at higher levels (applying, analyzing, and evaluating) rather than just identifying or defining a course concept.

• Sustained student engagement

  Sustained student engagement

  Encourage students to invest time and effort in meaningful learning activities. Sustained engagement supports deeper learning and is central to High-Impact Practice (HIP) pedagogy. Design tasks that demand time, set high expectations, and promote quality work.

  Example: A capstone project where students spends substantial time on completing research or a creative activity. The project requires students to integrate knowledge from multiple courses, conduct research, and produce a final product or presentation that showcases their learning.

• Shared experiences

  Shared experiences

  Foster shared experiences through collaboration with peers and instructors. 

  Example: A collaborative assignment or group project where students deeply discuss and analyze course material. This work requires students to actively listen to and consider differing perspectives, leading to a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

• Different perspectives and worldviews

  Different perspectives and worldviews

  Encourage students to engage with their peers that have different perspectives and worldviews, and to step outside their comfort zones. Create a learning environment where students can share experiences, consider new perspectives, discover common ground, and respectfully disagree.

  Examples: Readings, films, guest speakers, class discussions, and collaborative projects. 

• Frequent, timely, and constructive feedback

  Frequent, timely, and constructive feedback

  Provide frequent, high-quality feedback to guide student progress toward learning goals. Effective feedback, from both instructors and peers, is essential for keeping students engaged in your course. Without high-quality and consistent feedback, an educational practice cannot be considered high impact.

  For example, if a student submitted a reflection assignment and the only feedback you provided was, “Great job,” that would not meet this feedback criteria. Although this comment is encouraging and positive, it doesn't show that you closely read the assignment or took time to offer unique suggestions. As a result, the student may put in less time and effort in future assignments. That said, feedback does not need to be overly critical, especially for informal assignments like a personal reflection.

  Here are some suggestions for giving high-quality feedback:

  • Be affirming and encouraging
  • Give positive and constructive feedback
  • Cite specific examples in the assignment where the student can improve and explain your thinking
  • Connect your feedback to overarching goals of the assignment or course
  • Acknowledge when a student's performance improves from one assignment to the next by incorporating prior feedback
• Reflective practices

  Reflective practices

  Offer opportunities for reflective practice to help students synthesize learning, increase self-awareness, and reframe perspectives. Reflection helps students connect learning to their own lives and supports lifelong learning. 

  Encourage reflection through journals, ePortfolios, or group discussions. However, simply telling students to reflect isn’t enough. You will need to give clear instructions and prompts, such as asking them to recap, articulate what they learned. 

  Meaningful reflection is enhanced when peers or instructors provide quality feedback, ask critical questions, and help develop key ideas. Experts say that students gain the most when feedback is given without grading. This allows them to assign personal meaning rather than seeking others’ approval. Make sure that students have enough time for meaningful reflection.

• Real-world applications

  Real-world applications

  Give your students opportunities to apply their learning from HIPs in real-world settings. The strength of HIPs is that it classroom learning with the real world, so consider how you can bring learning beyond the classroom.

  There are many ways you can do this! Case studies can bring lecture content to life, or a student project could focus on proposing solutions to local problems using the knowledge they learned in your course. 

  Service learning is a great way to connect student learning with the community. Pedagogy focused on real-world application not only enhances learning, it helps students shape their identities as engaged citizens and community members.

• Demonstrating competence

  Demonstrating competence

  Provide opportunities for students to share their learning through presentations, ePortfolios, or internship projects. Preparing work for an audience helps students synthesize, articulate, and refine their learning.