Reflecting on Two Decades of Transition Pedagogy: How it Started; How it’s Going.

Abstract

This first article in the Student Success special issue’s reflective trilogy examines transition pedagogy’s evolution over two decades of iterative application, adoption and adaptation. Developed out of desperation to translate decades of research into effective educational practice, the framework initially sought to address the inequity of first-year transitions for diverse student cohorts. Years later, this integrative approach, and its six underpinning curriculum principles, have now been embraced as an inclusive, programmatic response to higher education’s shifting foci. Demonstrating resonance across the bookends of Australia’s two big higher education reviews – the Bradley Review of Higher Education and the Australian Universities Accord – transition pedagogy and its theory of generational change have proven to be sustainable and scalable once enmeshed in the core institutional business of course design. Relevantly, given the Accord’s aspirations for growth and equity parity, transition pedagogy overtly advances whole-of-institution coherence and universal design for substantive inclusion and success.