ABSTRACT
Emerging student-centered approaches in Higher Education (HE) emphasize students as 'partners', as 'producers', as well as independent enquirers, creative thinkers, team workers, self-managers and reflective learners. Academic engagement is defined as 'engaging in the activities of a course with thoroughness and seriousness'. This chapter documents recent institutional curriculum redevelopment at the University of Bedfordshire that has challenged orthodox thinking about effective teaching and learning. The chapter presents an evidence for demonstrating student engagement to be proportional to student involvement, and that the effectiveness of educational practice is related to its capacity to increase the quality of that involvement, more specifically, whether enjoyment is regularly achieved therein. Student's reported that working with academic staff to develop teaching approaches and content helped them gain a different angle on, and deeper understanding of, their learning through becoming more aware of, active in, and responsible for their learning both inside and outside the classroom.
