Consider these strategies and examples when developing programs to prioritize student development and help improve student retention, engagement, and academic performance.
High Impact Practices
These strategies are derived from the well-established list of High Impact Practices (HIP). Implementing HIPs across an academic program increases the possibility that students of all backgrounds will have positive, strong learning outcomes, and reinforces McGill’s commitment to providing healthy learning environments.
Some examples of HIPs from programs at McGill are provided below. Contact us if you have an example you’d like to include.
Provide structures that facilitate a common intellectual experience
- Ensure (groups of) students take 2 or more classes together.
- Offer first-year seminars to encourage incoming students to get to know each other and the program in smaller classroom contexts.
- Offer discipline-linked seminars (methodology, ethics, professional skills) to encourage inter-year interaction.
- Offer capstone courses in the final year/term to provide graduating students the opportunity to revisit their first-year cohorts and reflect on the program as a whole.
McGill examples
Climate Crisis and Climate Actions (FSCI 198), open to all McGill undergraduate students, is an interdisciplinary, whole-person introduction to the climate crisis and individual and collective actions to address it. Students learn about multiple ways of knowing—from Indigenous knowledge, to data-rich science, to quantitative and qualitative climate and socio-economic models.
Enable experiential, community, and global learning opportunities
- Offer opportunities for service learning / community-based learning.
- Offer opportunities for discipline-related internships, both within the university and outside of it.
- Create opportunities for public demonstrations of competence.
- Include courses focused on professional ethics.
- Encourage the development of a personal philosophy through creating supportive structures for self-assessment.
McGill examples
- Field study semesters are packages of courses aimed at upper-year students that focus on the physical and social aspects of the environment. They are offered in various regionals around the world.
- The Mobile Dental Clinic works with local community groups and agencies to provide free dental care and promote oral health education to vulnerable populations.
- The Faculty of Arts facilitates student internships with NGOs and research groups working on community initiatives, social justice, and educational development.
- The International Human Rights Internship Program enables Law students to gain and practice skills while earning credits with NGOS, courses, and public institutions.
- The Undergraduate Science Showcase celebrates the work of students by providing them with an opportunity to share their scientific research, passion projects, in-class assignments, and more.
Facilitate student-faculty interaction
- Provide undergraduate research opportunities.
- Offer discipline-linked events where students can learn not only about the discipline but also about the different approaches to it represented by faculty members.
- Outline mentorship expectations for program faculty, including providing training and resources for faculty.
McGill examples
- The School of the Environment offers a course (ENVR 401) where approved students are selected to work in teams on projects with real-world clients and a faculty supervisor.
- Examples of undergraduate research opportunities that provide funding for students to work with a faculty member on a research project include:
- Arts and Science Integrative Topics (BASC) integrates both arts and sciences topics to enable BA&Sc students to investigate the value of an interdisciplinary approach.
- Soup and Science events expose students to the research being conducted in the Faculty of Science and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration between faculty members.
- Enhancing Learning and Teaching in Engineering(ELATE) fosters learning communities comprising of students, TAs, and staff.
Strategies for inclusive program design
McGill’s commitment to providing students with a healthy learning environment means we need to be inclusive of all students and foster their ability to fully benefit from high impact practices.
Approximately one out of every three full-time degree students is on some form of need-based (often debt-based) government or institutional financial aid. The necessity for financial assistance can sometimes preclude student in need from participating in certain programs or opportunities due to the constraints around their aid.
Here are some considerations for program design that promote access for all students.
All terms within a program must be offered full-time
- Where possible, avoid designing programs where it is mandatory to be part-time for a particular term.Quebec students on government aid must be registered in at least 12 credits per term to be considered full-time.
- As required by Quebec and Canadian immigration regulations, international students are required to maintain a full-time course load in every term, except their final term before graduating or during a regularly scheduled break in their program (such as the summer term) for undergraduate and most non-thesis graduate programs.
Projects, stages, co-ops, etc. that are a mandatory part of a program should be recognized as full-time effort
- Students in need are unable to receive government aid if their program requires them to work on projects full time (often during the summer) for which no credit is attributed. Some stages require full-time effort but only attribute part-time credit. Students in need find themselves working full time, unpaid, and ineligible for aid.
- The ideal approach is to have full-time effort recognized as full-time credit. International students may only obtain a co-op work permit if the stage/co-op/placement is an integral part of the program of study (i.e., required for all students in the program for completion of the program).
Experiential learning opportunities should be paid or supplemented with financial awards
- Off-campus mobility or other experiential opportunities (e.g., field courses, internships, and research opportunities) can be challenging for students in financial need, especially when the experience is unpaid and does not offer full-time credit. Moreover, these opportunities often prevent students from earning money through part-time work.
- To ensure these opportunities remain accessible to all, they should either be structured as paid arrangements or supplemented with financial awards to offset any financial shortfall. The Enriched Educational Opportunities (EEO) Bursary Program provides non-repayable financial assistance based on demonstrated financial need.
- With a dedicated funding envelope, the Scholarships and Student Aid Office assesses financial need and provides bursary values appropriate to each student’s financial situation.