High-impact practices encourage active learning and collaboration

Lizette Miramontes sometimes zones out after 10 minutes of sitting in a lecture. It’s hard to retain the information, then memorize it, take a test and remember it again down the road, she said.

But the way students are learning is changing thanks to high-impact practices — programs and activities to increase student engagement, to foster mentorship and encourage cooperation and teamwork, which have been found to lead to increased graduation rates, GPA and retention.

In two of her courses this year, Miramontes works on collaborative assignments and projects with her classmates. The goal is to work and solve problems together through study groups, team assignments and writing, projects and research. 

“This way of learning is making a big difference on how I interpret things,” said Miramontes, who is working to be a special education teacher. “It’s a completely different way of teaching from other instructors I’ve had at community college. It’s more hands on, and it gets you to talk. It’s pushed me to be a better student.”

High-impact practices include service-learning, learning communities in which groups of students take two or more courses together, research, internship or field experience, study abroad, and a culminating senior experience. At Fresno State, 85% of students reported that they participated in at least one of the six practices compared to 83% at other California State University campuses, according to data from the Office of Institutional Effectiveness.

Of those practices, 40% of students report having participated in an internship or field experience, compared to 35% at other CSUs. When it comes to service-learning, 72% of students participated, compared to 66% of students from other CSU campuses. About 19% of students participate in learning communities and 17% work with faculty on research.

Fresno State students will share their high-impact learning experiences during the university’s annual High-Impact Practices Symposium from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 14, online and in person at the Leon S. Peters Ellipse Gallery on the second floor of the Fresno State Library.

When students have two to three years of high-impact practices, the achievement gap closes, said Dr. Beth Weinman, symposium coordinator and professor of earth and environmental sciences. She was trained in 2014 about high-impact practices and one of the early professors at Fresno State trained to teach this way in 2014. 

“I feel like there’s change and the students want active learning,” Weinman said.

Miramontes’ introductory science course for future elementary teachers is taught by Dr. Dermot  Donnelly-Hermosillo. After teaching the class more than a dozen times over his 10 years at Fresno State, he noticed things weren’t working. Exams were not as effective as he wanted them to be and class discussions weren’t as helpful as they could be. So, he ditched traditional sit-down exams and looked for a way to make the class more interactive and relatable.

“The common notion of science is that it can be potentially boring if you’re just being talked at all the time, whereas if you get to engage with materials yourself, it can be quite fun,” Donnelly-Hermosillo said.

That means assigning students to work in groups and allowing them time to discuss in class, which then moves outside of class because of the assignments, he said. The students often end up creating long friendships with their peers because of this experience. And students aren’t afraid to ask questions when working together, he said.

The experience also includes hands-on learning such as creating lesson plans or interacting with children. Donnelly-Hermosillo brings parents and children into class to work with his students on science activities.

“In turn, you get further buy-in from students because they’ve realized you’ve taught your course in terms of where it’s going to benefit them,” Donnelly-Hermosillo said.