You Need to Tailor High Structure and Iterate the Course Design Process to Make it Work
This important paper by Anne Casper, Sarah Eddy, and Scott Freeman ultimately shows benefits to student learning from using high structure, but it took three tries to get it right. Don't forget that tailoring the approach to your specific students and modifying as needed is a critical step to ensuring success!
Our first two experiments on adapting a high-structure course model to an essentially open-enrollment university produced negative or null results. Our third experiment, however, proved more successful: performance improved for all students, and a large achievement gap that impacted underrepresented minority students under traditional lecturing closed. Although the successful design included preclass preparation videos, intensive active learning in class, and weekly practice exams, student self-report data indicated that total study time decreased. Faculty who have the grit to experiment and persevere in making evidence-driven changes to their teaching can reduce the inequalities induced by economic and educational disadvantage.