ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how active learning and purposeful student engagement can enhance the transition stages as students move from being newcomers to higher education, to establishing themselves as students, and then move towards a graduate identity. It also discusses the process of learning, and the nature of learning environments as spaces for student engagement. Active learning pedagogies have the capacity to develop the skills that students need to manage continued change in the learning process throughout their university years. While transition stages in learning can be identified, students have to be willing to participate in appropriate activities. Constructing new frameworks can only be done through active engagement; constructivism rejects all notions of the student being an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge that is regurgitated or copied. Significant work has been done across the sector to invite students' participation in curriculum design and development through integration into key panels and working groups.
