High Impact Practices

Engaging in High Impact Practices (HIPs) improves student learning outcomes. Research shows that students involved in high-impact practices enjoy higher levels of learning success, retention and degree completion. Research and research training, for example, are fundamental cornerstones of an academic institution. Students who learn to perform research, use systematic methods to investigate significant problems in innovative ways, and who learn to clearly communicate their findings to diverse audiences, are uniquely trained in the high-demand skill sets needed by our modern-day workforce.

The Mindset Student Workshops series, known internally as the “Boost” Mindset project, is entering its fourth year as an institution-wide initiative designed to enhance student motivation, metacognition, and academic self-efficacy. Originating from a Chancellor’s Learning Scholar Faculty Learning Community on Mindset in 2018 and supported by the USG STEM Grant Initiative, this work has evolved from a pilot project into a sustained element of SGSC’s student success strategy.

Experiential Learning at the University of Georgia empowers every student to apply their learning in real-world contexts, equipping them with the competencies and expanded perspectives to thrive in the emerging, dynamic global society.  

The institution is scaling the number of courses with embedded HiPs and systematically capturing those in the SIS. 

VSU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (Experiential Learning); 4 year completion Spring 2025

In freshman orientation classes each 1st-year student will be required to complete an assignment designed to encourage the use of stepping blocks data.  Based on an academic major of interest, students will research common jobs associated with the major as well as the job market and the salaries associated with these positions.

This initiative will expand the utilization of an academic chatbot in core courses.  The chatbot provides basic academic information, utilizes intelligent agents in the LMS to monitor student engagement and prompts as necessary, evaluates readiness for quizzes and reminds students about assignments and deadlines. GSU received a $7 million Post Secondary Student Success grant from the Department of Education to launch this technology in introductory English and Math courses in Fall 2024.  Chatbot technology is already used in American Government, Macroeconomics and Chemistry.

Student Learning Communities consist of courses in which a common theme or themes are utilized to create opportunities for students to explore these themes in more depth and see how the theme (s) crosses different disciplines. In addition, SLCs encourage a sense of belonging and student engagement since students may share two or more courses together which focus on the same theme.

As part of the consolidation with Georgia Southern University (GS), an EGSC/GS team is proposing to replace EGSC’s 1 credit hour CATS 1101 Critical and Academic Thinking for Success freshmen orientation course with two 1 credit hour courses, as presented below along with their draft student learning outcomes (SLOs):