Abstract

Higher education scholarship has established that enhanced student engagement leads to greater academic success, which then leads to an enriched student experience and higher student retention. These issues are arguably at the core of enabling education which prepares students to transition into degree programs. This paper outlines a teaching philosophy developed in a linguistics course in an enabling program at a regional Australian university in 2013. The philosophy, called _The Cupcake Philosophy_, is grounded in the theories of transformative learning and social constructivism. It makes complex linguistic theory and academic practices accessible for enabling students. It involves not only an overall style of teaching, but also a creative use of the metaphor of cupcakes, along with peer-learning activities, which scaffold students’ disciplinary knowledge and academic literacies. This, in turn, helps students improve their self-efficacy in the tertiary environment, enabling them to reach their academic potential. After the philosophy was formalised in the course, student engagement, satisfaction and retention improved, as did the quality of students’ assessed work. This paper demonstrates how an innovative and student-focused teaching practice can effectively promote student engagement and academic success.