Threshold Concepts and their Importance in Teaching and Learning

1. Threshold Concepts and their Importance in Teaching and Learning Andrew Ashwin Higher Education Publisher Cengage Learning EMEA

3. What is the Issue? • Some students seem to ‘get it’ • Some students don’t • Why? • As teachers, what are our conceptions of learning? • What is your definition of ‘learning’ in Economics?

4. Approaches to Learning • Deep Learning – a qualitative change in understanding reality • Surface Learning – memorising in order to re-tell • Strategic Learning – doing enough to get the grades needed to move on

5. Threshold Concepts • Act as a portal to transformed understanding of a subject • Thinking in the subject – thinking like an economist

6. Thinking Like an Economist • What does the idea of thinking like an economist mean to you? • How do you know when students are thinking like an economist? What does it look like?

7. Troublesome Knowledge • Troublesome knowledge – fuzzy understanding and confusion • “When the price goes up the demand changes and people buy less. This causes the demand curve to shift to the left and leads to a fall in price and the amount consumers buy.” • “Opportunity cost is the amount of money that you would have used to buy a product”

8. Concepts • Mental images – common features that facilitate common recognition and understanding • Communicating our mental images • Criterial Attributes: characteristics/features that define a category or concept

9. Criterial Attributes

10. Criterial Attributes • Question: • What are the criterial attributes of the following economic concepts? • Incentives • The margin • Elasticity • Real and nominal variables

11. Concept Formation and Concept Acquisition • Concept acquisition – the presentation of concepts to learners – leads to representational learning (surface learning = troublesome knowledge) • Concept formation – a cognitive process to assimilate concepts – leads to deep learning (= threshold concepts)

12. Core Concepts in Economics • Question: • If you were only allowed to teach FIVE economics concepts to a Principles of Economics class, what would they be?

13. Threshold Concepts • Transformative • Irreversible • Integrative • Bounded • Troublesome

14. What are Threshold Concepts in Economics? • Opportunity cost • The margin • Incentives • Partial equilibrium • Comparative advantage • The failure of the market to meet social objectives • Government role in improving market outcomes • Elasticity • General equilibrium • Efficiency • Fluctuations in short term growth and its effect on aggregate demand • Long term growth and the supply side • Real and nominal values • Cumulative causation (e.g. the multiplier).

15. Implications for Teaching and Learning • Starting with what students know – getting them to discover concepts • Using appropriate questioning techniques • The chance for students to apply knowledge and concepts to new contexts • Designing assessment to encourage deep learning

16. Question • Write down a definition of ‘value’ • Can we come to an agreement on the definition? • Can we agree on some criterial attributes of the concept of ‘value’? • Where do we meet ‘value’ in economics?

17. Assessment • What assessment techniques do we use and why? • Many assessment systems across the world are based on Bloom’s taxonomy (1956) • Are there other assessment systems that would be more appropriate?

19. Developing Understanding through Cases and Questions? • Presenting material chapter-by-chapter • Presenting material through ‘stories’ • Does one help promote thinking like an economist more than the other?

20. Using Stories or Real Life Information • We have issued a call for evidence on wind. That is about cost but also about community buy-in. We need to understand communities' genuine desires. We will form our policy in the future on the basis of that, not on a bourgeois Left article of faith based on some academic perspective. • If you look at what has been built, what has consent and what is in the planning system, much of it will not get through and will be rejected. Even if a minority of what’s in the system is built we are going to reach our 2020 target. I’m saying enough is enough. • I have asked the planning minister to look again at the relationship between these turbines and the landscape. It seems extraordinary to have allowed them to be peppered around the country without due regard for the interests of the local community or their wishes.

21. Corrective Wikis • Corrective wikis – a means of encouraging students to think and use concepts and knowledge • Post a passage online – there are many mistakes in it. • Students have to produce a corrected and accurate version • Encourages collaborative working • Can record who have contributed

22. Questioning Techniques • Types of questioning in the classroom • Closed questions • Open questions • Obvious questions • Why ask a question of a student when you know the answer? • How does the student feel when they are asked a question in a class? • How can you alleviate the psychological pressure on students?

23. Summary • Can we empathize with students new to the subject? • Are Threshold concepts a useful way of thinking about teaching and learning in economics? • Should we think more about concepts in our teaching? • Can we change our teaching and learning strategies?

24. Andrew Ashwin Publisher, Cengage Learning andrew.ashwin@cengage.com