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Purpose – This chapter examines the use of high-impact student engagement practices in library and information science (LIS) education programs.

Approach – This chapter opens with an overview of systematic planning, an outcomes-based process used to support the continuous development and improvement of higher education programs. It then details the essential contributions that students can make in systematic planning through high-impact student engagement practices, and summarizes the core competencies that students develop through these practices. A synthesis of the extant research on high-impact student engagement practices in LIS education and the results of a content analysis of select accreditation self-study reports were used to identify how these practices are utilized in LIS programs.

Findings – Five high-impact student engagement practices were used by LIS education programs: student advisory boards, student-organized meetings, student-run surveys, student-led course evaluations, and student-led curriculum development programs. These practices may be used as pedagogical tools to support mutually beneficial outcomes for LIS students and their educational programs.

Originality/Value – Student leadership in systematic program planning promotes positive student and programmatic outcomes. Broader adoption of these practices across LIS education programs will help promote student learning, prepare students for professional practice, and improve the quality and relevance of LIS education programs.

This study aimed to match high-impact, experiential learning with equally powerful assessment practices.

We observed three examples of programs, analyzing individual student artifacts to identify multiple learning outcomes across domains through a novel approach to assessment.

Important outcomes from this effort were boundary-crossing qualities made visible through a multi perspective assessment process.

Future research should focus on the nature of experiential learning and measurement thereof.

Learning design should consider experiences as a means to reflection, which complement content delivery. Instructors may restructure course credit loads to better reflect additional learning outcomes.

Learners with this feedback may be able to better articulate sociocultural learning.

Describes learning in experiential and high-impact education; novel assessment of experiential learning in university setting.

This chapter explores how the intersections of race, gender, and class combine to affect Black undergraduate women and their engagement with high impact practices (HIPs). Specifically, this chapter describes the extent to which Black undergraduate women engaged in HIPs of service-learning, research with faculty, and internships; describes factors that contributed to their engagement (or non-engagement) in the HIPs, while attending a PWI; and explores the role race, gender, and class had on engagement (or non-engagement) with these HIPs. This study used a two-phase sequential explanatory mixed methods approach, which consisted of an electronic survey (n = 190) and semi-structured interviews (n = 10). Survey items were taken from the National Survey of Student Engagement, The College Student Report. The study was conceptually grounded by intersectionality, which allowed an exploration of how social inequalities and power relations intersect to potentially influence the college experience of Black women. Findings indicate that Black women are engaging with HIPs. Factors contributing to engagement included positive faculty interactions, desire to make connections on campus and the need to acquire real world work experience. Factors contributing to non-engagement included lack of knowledge regarding HIPs and the impact of the campus climate on students' sense of belonging and occurrences of stereotype threat.

This chapter points out that many higher education institutions (HEIs) have responded to daunting sustainability challenges by (1) infusing sustainability into the curriculum; (2) becoming engaged with the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs); and (3) building on Boyer’s scholarship of engagement, developing partnerships for sustainability with various sectors of society through service–learning (SL). Perhaps our most daunting sustainability challenge is climate change, with its accompanying catastrophic biodiversity loss and widespread human misery from rising oceans, flooding, drought, wildfires, and extreme weather events. It has been shown that the food sector, or agriculture, has a great impact on climate change. For that reason the non-governmental organization (NGO) Intervale Center (IC), a recognized leader in sustainable agriculture, was selected as a partner for a University of Vermont (UVM) SL course in environmental interpretation (EI). IC and its programs are presented, followed by an explanation of EI. A case study of a university partnership for sustainability – a linkage between IC and the EI course – is then shared. The mechanics of that partnership are offered, and the resulting student creations. Finally, conclusions are drawn, especially the importance of HEIs networking with other sectors to work toward sustainable futures.

Using a case study analysis of one undergraduate program that focuses on training science majors to perform sustainability outreach in their communities, this study offers pedagogical suggestions for how educators in universities might incorporate sustainability and activism into their curricular design.

This chapter discusses the relationship between the hard academic knowledge of the classroom and the outreach work done by the students by examining how curricular design and classroom activities lead to outreach work. Drawing on interviews, curriculum materials, and observations of staff meetings, this chapter examines how the course teachers use a peer-learning model to collaboratively develop the pedagogy of the classroom.

This model of teacher training through engagement with the content material of the course represents reflective learning practices. By being asked to break down and contextualize class themes and units for themselves as thinkers, the teachers first reflect on their own learning process and disciplinary participation as a way of developing course material for their students, who are themselves not incredibly far behind their facilitators in their own learning development.

The effectiveness of this practice suggests possibilities for using teacher training as a way to model the classroom space that each discipline believes best serve their learning goals. By first reflecting on their own individual relationship to the subject material, the teachers engage in a re-negotiation with knowledge that is synonymous with effective learning. The knowledge of the discipline is constantly re-negotiated around why that knowledge matters for each individual member of the discipline.

By considering how the classroom in this program combines disciplinary knowledge of environmental science with outreach and activist-oriented praxis, this case study analysis allows for pedagogical techniques that instructors might use with similar goals of combining traditional academic discourse with public outreach and participation.