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FY 24-25 Series

Evidence-Based Teaching Practices

In collaboration with the Vice Provost for Academic Initiatives, the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) is offering a year-long, workshop series dedicated to Evidence-Based Teaching Practices.This series goes directly to the heart of the evidence-based teaching and learning strategies that enhance engaged learning and have a positive impact on the persistence, resilience, and success of all students.

FY 24-25 Workshop Recordings

• Mindset Matters: Fostering a Growth Mindset in Higher Education (55 min) | Jen Elbek, Ph.D. (8/29/2024)
  
  

FY 23-24 Series

High Impact Practices & Pedagogies

In collaboration with the Vice Provost for Academic Initiatives, the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) offered a year-long, workshop series dedicated to High Impact Practices (HIPs).

Evidence-Based Teaching Practices

     ...foundational to High Impact Practices

High Impact Practices (HIPs) are educational opportunities that have been widely tested and shown to improve student success, especially among historically underserved students. This year, High Impact Practices (HIPs) are a focal point of our programming and numerous collaborations across campus.

The AAC&U identifies eleven “teaching and learning practices” designated as High Impact Practices.

• See: AACU High-Impact Practices.

Much of this work stems from George Kuh’s (2008 and 2013) research on the topic.

• See: Excerpt from High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter for Kuh’s Excerpt from High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter, and
• HIPs at Ten for Kuh’s reflection on HIPs ten years later.

You will notice that many of the discussions involving HIPs focus on programs and not pedagogies. It takes a little creativity to see the underlying teaching practices that result in a positive impact on learning. Likewise, it takes a moment to realize that HIPs emphasize engagement and subtly address the conditions necessary for engaged learning to happen. Research by Kuh and others ultimately present eight engaged learning practices that make high impact practices work:

1. Setting performance expectations appropriately high and communicating these expectations to students
   1. Research indicates that students will reach for and attain high standards if they are course-level appropriate and explained appropriately. We refer to this as The Pygmalion Effect.
      1. We can help faculty set and communicate standards and create pathways for their accomplishment. Learn more: Aiming High: Setting and Achieving High Standards (36 min), Slides by Brian Smentkowski, Ph.D. (09/07/23)
2. Encouraging students to invest meaningful time and effort into realistic and complex tasks over an extended period of time.
   1. Think about the words here: “meaningful”, “time and effort”, “realistic”, “complex”, “extended” –they inform the teaching and learning connection.
      1. Most importantly, we need to make time for the learning to happen. Learn more: Making Time for the Learning to Happen: Opportunities and Strategies for Reflection and Integrated Learning by Brian Smentkowski, Ph.D. (02/01/24)
3. Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)
   1. Predictable patterns of meaningful interactions between students, between faculty and students, and with content has always been HIP.
   2. This gets at the value and impact of engagement –interaction and engagement are essential.
      1. Here, it is important to think across instructional modalities –how can we establish and sustain regular and substantive interaction with our students in a way that interests, motivates, and educates them? Learn more: Meaningful Interactions: The Key to Engaged Learning (47 min) by Jen Elbek, Ph.D. (12/07/23). Also check out: Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)
4. Challenging students’ ways of thinking, knowing, and doing with different experiences, shifting contexts, and diverse perspectives.
   1. Inherent in the concept of an educated person is the ability to critically assess information, viewpoints, ideas, and phenomena, not just in the world at large, but in our own lives. Our goal as educators is to help students learn how to think things through, not simply to react. Learn more: Challenging Students Ways of Thinking and Knowing (1 hr) | Slides by Brian Smentkowski, Ph.D. (02/14/24)
5. Timely, frequent, and meaningful feedback
   1. On virtually all college campuses, including our own, students have shared one big ask of their professors: please provide timely, meaningful, and frequent feedback.
      1. Timely, frequent, and meaningful feedback are critical to student success at multiple levels: it informs strategic decisions about one’s ability to thrive in a class at a particular moment (semester) in time, it shows that the professor cares, it demonstrates fairness and reciprocity, it supports continuous improvement, and it helps students scaffold learning with the knowledge that they are building on a solid foundation and are heading in the right direction.) Learn more: Timely and Meaningful Feedback: Simple yet Essential Steps to Student Success (54 min) by Douglas Habib, Ph.D. (01/18/24)
6. Structured opportunities for reflection and integrated learning
   1. We talk a lot about scaffolding and chunking these days.
      1. Research indicates that when faculty organize information and presentations in clear segments (chunks), and when they are scaffolded in both an individual class and the curriculum, students see and learn the connections necessary for advancement within a field of study.
      2. We can also scaffold metacognition and prior knowledge retrieval to higher-level, integrated learning. In-Person Workshop: Scaffolding the Learning Process (Live in-person, hands-on workshop) by Douglas Habib, Ph.D. (10/4/2023)
7. Real world scenarios, applications, relevance, and experience
   1. We cannot provide every student with the opportunity to travel the world, but we can use technology and instruction to do so virtually. We do this by addressing real-world phenomena through dynamic pedagogical interventions.
      1. We have learned a lot about virtual engagement through covid, and even more fundamentally, this item speaks to the need for relevance. We need to make learning experiences and topics relevant to our students, not just our disciplines. We can help students use and see real-world applications and scenarios in myriad ways. Learn more: Make it Matter: Real World Scenarios, Applications, and Experiences (50 min) by Jen Elbek, Ph.D. (03/07/24)
8. Public demonstrations of competence
   1. While “going public” is often associated with scholarship, there are ways that teaching and learning can not only occur in, but be shared in, the public domain. In class, on-campus, in the community, and online, there are many different ways for students to show what they know, and in a Universally Designed manner.
      1. We can help faculty create safe and brave, yet challenging, spaces for presentations or demonstrations of knowledge, skills, and accomplishments. Learn more: Show What You Know: Going Public with Learning (49 min) by Sean Quallen, Ph.D. (04/04/24)

How we can work together
The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning’s commitment to student success is rooted in the nexus of evidence-based and evidence-generating practices. As a scholarly unit, we at once further the adoption of evidence-based practices in the curriculum and engage in research to generate new knowledge about teaching and learning across instructional modalities and disciplines. This year, High Impact Practices (HIPs) are a focal point of our programming. Specifically, we are actively involved in a number of initiatives designed to promote a culture of high impact teaching and learning at the University of Idaho. From work on the University of Idaho SUCCESS Team to exciting new transdisciplinary teaching and research collaborations, we are developing new strategies to unify faculty and integrate (and invent!) practices that create and sustain the conditions necessary for learning to happen. If you would like to learn more or engage in a teaching and research collaborative, please drop Brian Smentkowski a line!