Threshold Concepts
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This document contains presentation slides for a workshop on threshold concepts. The slides introduce threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge, discussing their characteristics and providing examples of threshold concepts in different disciplines. Activities are included to help participants identify threshold concepts in their own fields and design learning activities around these concepts. The slides also address using threshold concepts to guide curriculum design. The overall aim is to help participants understand and apply the concepts of threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge.
Threshold Concepts
- 1. http://www.freephotogaleries.com/picture/Metal_and_glass_structure/category/7-textures Photo: Andrei Ceru. CC 3.0 Threshold Concepts: A discipline-based approach to learning and design
- 2. http://www.freephotogaleries.com/picture/Sqares/category/7-textures Introduction Photo: Andrei Ceru. CC 3.0 ims ackground/context to threshold concepts research haracteristics of threshold concepts hreshold concepts in the field • What concepts arise in different disciplines?
- 3. Session aims Overall aim: The aim of this workshop is to help participants … earn about ‘threshold concepts’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveberardi/3105721570/ and ‘troublesome knowledge’ onsider what threshold concepts might exist in their disciplines esign a learning activity around a Photo: Steve Berardi. CC BY-SA threshold concept in their field
- 4. Background to threshold concept research trongly discipline-focused: Initially engineering, history, biology, economics rose from ETL (Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses) project • ESRC-funded threshold concepts’ emerged in all the subjects being studied nitial research involved academics and students from a number of UK universities
- 5. Activity 1: recalling a difficult learning experience Think back to your time as a learner in your subject. Try to remember a key concept or theory that you struggled with. Photo: Don Nelson Please make some notes about the concept/theory and the experience of learning it.
- 6. http://www.freephotogaleries.com/picture/S_shape_structure/category/1-abstract_stock Threshold knowledge as a portal Photo: Andrei Ceru. CC 3.0 ‘A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept, there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even worldview.’ (Meyer and Land, 2003)
- 7. Some characteristics of threshold concepts ransformative – once understood, they should shift one’s perception of the subject http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveberardi/3968169976/sizes/l/in/set-72157622485017310/ rreversible – cannot be ‘unlearned’ • Troublesome - potentially counter- ntegrative – has the capacity to ‘expose a hidden intuitive. interrelatedness’ concept a student moves 'In grasping a threshold from a common sense understanding to an understanding which may conflict with perceptions that have previously seemed self-evidently true.’ Photo: Steve Berardi. CC BY-SA (Davies, 2003)
- 8. http://www.freephotogaleries.com/picture/Antique_religious_writings/category/1-abstract_stock Photo: Andrei Ceru. CC 3.0 Troublesome knowledge
- 9. Liminal spaces CC 3.0 Photo: Andrei Ceru http://www.freephotogaleries.com/picture/Half_moon/category/4-science
- 10. http://www.freephotogaleries.com/picture/Tramway_station/category/1-abstract_stock Activity 2: initial responses Photo: Andrei Ceru. CC 3.0 lease watch the interview with Glynis Cousin. lynis Cousin Interview • What is your initial response to Glynis’ account of threshold concepts? • Does anything in your background as a learner or a teacher resonate with her account of threshold
- 11. Threshold concepts in the disciplines Subject Threshold Concept English literature Deconstruction; hegemony; signification Economics Opportunity cost, the margin Maths Limit, complex number Electrical engineering Frequency response Computer science Object-oriented programming (OOP); memory/pointers, state Academic literacies Writing as a social practice Cultural studies; sociology Otherness Accounting Depreciation Engineering Spin Politics ‘the state’ Land 2010; Land et al. 2008; Meyer and Land, 2003
- 12. Activity 3: identifying threshold concepts in your discipline onsider the threshold concepts on the handout from your discipline (or cognate discipline) http://www.freephotogaleries.com/picture/Green_water_drop/category/1-abstract_stock • Do you agree with the categorisation? Please identify up to 3 additional threshold concepts in your field. lease discuss your findings with Photo: Andrei Ceru. CC 3.0 colleagues from similar disciplines.
- 13. Learning and threshold concepts ow can we use threshold concepts to design learning activities? lease see one or both of the following resources for examples to prepare for Activity 4 (slide 14): tamboulis, et al. (2012) ‘Uncovering threshold values in first year engineering courses and implications for curriculum design’ OER. http://www.hestem.ac.uk/sites/default/files/uncovering_threshold_values.pdf and, R. and Meyer, J. (2003) Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines (Section 4
- 14. Activity 4: designing a learning activity around a threshold concept lease take a threshold concept from your discipline (from the handout or one that you have identified) pend some time drafting a learning activity (or a series of activities) around the concept hare the idea with up to four other people.
- 15. http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveberardi/3355029505/in/set-72157624777762120/lightbox/ Photo: Steve Berardi. CC BY-SA Threshold concepts and curriculum design
- 16. Using threshold concepts to guide curriculum design http://www.freephotogaleries.com/picture/Fir_cone/category/5-nature Photo: Andrei Ceru. CC 3.0
- 17. http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveberardi/3105721570/in/photostream Activity 5: Curriculum design task Photo: Steve Berardi. CC BY-SA ow could you use an awareness of threshold concepts for curriculum design? lease take a curriculum (either from a single module, a year or an entire degree). onsider where the core threshold concepts appear in the curriculum/curricula.
- 18. References ousin, G. (2006) ‘An Introduction to threshold concepts’ http://gees.ac.uk/planet/p17/gc.pdf avies, P. (2003) ‘Threshold Concepts: how can we recognise them? Embedding Threshold Concepts project: Working Paper 1’. Embedding Threshold Concepts Project and, R. (2010) ‘Threshold Concepts and Issues of Interdisciplinarity’. Third Biennial Threshold Concepts Symposium: Exploring transformative dimensions of threshold concepts: The University of New South Wales Australia, 2010. and, R., Meyer, J. and Smith, J. (2008) Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines. Rotterdam: Sense. eyer, J. and Land, R. (2003)’Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines’. ETL Project Report No. 4. http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/docs/ETLreport4.pdf erkins, D. (2006) ‘Constructivism and troublesome knowledge. In JHF Meyer and R Land (Eds) Overcoming barriers to student understanding: Threshold Concepts and troublesome knowledge. London: Routledge. erkins, D. (1999). ‘The many faces of constructivism’, Educational Leadership, 57 (3).
- 19. Learning Resource Metadata Field/Element Value: Title Disciplinary Thinking – Threshold concepts: Workshop slides Description Presentation slides for a workshop on threshold concepts. Theme Threshold Concepts Subject HE - Education Author Colleen McKenna & Jane Hughes: HEDERA, 2012 Owner The University of Bath Audience Educational developers in accredited programmes & courses in higher education. Issue Date 24/05/2012 Last updated Date 01/08/2012 Version final PSF Mapping A1, A2, K1, K2, K3 License Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. ukoer, education, discthink, disciplinary thinking, hedera, university of bath, Keywords threshold concepts, curriculum design, academic practice DRAFT 19
Editor's Notes
- #11: Add in link to video.
- #15: . Participants could work in pairs or small groups for this exercise. If the session is small enough, they could be ask to be prepared to share their learning activity with the group, so flipboard paper or another medium could be distributed.
- #17: Draw on Cousin here.
- #18: This would work well if you have a group of participants from a similar faculty who are revamping a course. Remember Cousin’s exhortation that ‘less is more’ See Cousin’s briefing ‘An Introduction to Threshold Concepts’ for curriculum design.