Threshold Concepts:

1. Threshold Concepts: Photo: Andrei Ceru A discipline-based approach to learning and design

2. Introduction • Aims • Background/context to threshold concepts research • Characteristics of threshold concepts • Threshold concepts in the field • What concepts arise in different disciplines • Threshold concepts and learning activities • Curriculum design Photo: Andrei Ceru

3. Session aims Overall aim:. The aim of this workshop is to help participants - • learn about ‘threshold concepts’ and ‘troublesome knowledge’ • consider what threshold concepts might exist in their discipline • design a learning activity around a threshold concept in their field • Redesign an undergraduate curriculum with threshold concepts in mind

4. Activity: 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. Please make some notes about the concept/theory and the experience of learning it. Photo: Don Nelson

5. Threshold knowledge as a portal ‘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.’ (Meyer and Land, 2003) Photo: Andrei Ceru

6. Some characteristics of threshold concepts • Transformative – once understood, they should shift one’s perception of the subject • Irreversible – cannot be ‘unlearned’ • Integrative – has the capacity to ‘expose a hidden interrelatedness’ • Troublesome - potentially counter-intuitive. • 'In grasping a threshold concept a student moves from a common sense understanding to an understanding which may conflict with perceptions that have previously seemed self-evidently true.’ (Davies, 2003) Photo: Kathleen Cohen

7. Troublesome knowledge Photo: Andrei Ceru • knowledge that is difficult to teach and difficult to learn but which offers the learner a new perspective on the topic and, potentially, the discipline. • Troublesome knowledge might also require new use of language and shifts in understanding. It may also take a learner deeper into the subject. • Aim is not to elide or avoid, but rather to acknowledge troublesome knowledge. • Land, 2008 and Perkins, 2006

8. Liminal spaces • Suspended and transformative space that a learner occupies by moving from one state or position to another • Can be a space in which someone engages with previously held beliefs/certainties and renders them problematic • Often unsettling • Land and Meyer 2008; Land 2010 Photo: Andrei Ceru

9. Activity: initial responses Please watch the interview with Glynis Cousin. Glynis 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 concepts? Photo: Andrei Ceru

10. Threshold concepts in the disciplines Land 2010; Land et al 2008; Meyer and Land, 2003

11. Activity: identifying threshold concepts in your discipline • Consider the threshold concepts on the handout from your discipline (or cognate discipline) • Do you agree with the categorisation? • Please identify up to 3 additional threshold concepts in your field. • Please discuss your findings with colleagues from similar disciplines. Photo: Andrei Ceru

12. Learning and threshold concepts • How can we use threshold concepts to design learning activities? • Please see handout with case study and examples.

13. Activity: designing a learning activity around a threshold concept • Please take a threshold concept from your discipline (from the handout or one that you’ve identified) • Spend some time drafting a learning activity (or a series of activities) around the concept • Share the idea with up to four other people. Photo: Kathleen Cohen

14. Threshold concept and curriculum design ‘The role of the teacher is to arrange victories for the students.’ Quintilian 35-100 AD • Cited in Land 2010 Photo: Kathleen Cohen

15. Using threshold concepts to guide curriculum design • ‘Jewels in the curriculum’ – see the threshold concepts as points of transformation; build the curriculum around them • Allow space for confusion • ‘Recursiveness and excursiveness’ • Learners might have to revisit and doubleback while engaging with a threshold concept • (Cousin, 2006, drawing on Land et al 2006) Photo: Andrei Ceru

16. Curriculum design task Photo: Andrei Ceru • How could you use an awareness of threshold concepts for curriculum design? • Please take a curriculum (either from a single module, a year or an entire degree). • Consider where the core threshold concepts appear in the curriculum/curricula. • Are there ways in which you could reorganise the curriculum having identified threshold concepts?

17. References • Cousin, G. (2006) ‘An Introduction to threshold concepts’ http://gees.ac.uk/planet/p17/gc.pdf • Land, 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. • Land, R.; Meyer, J. and Smith, J. (2008) Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines. Rotterdam: Sense. • Meyer, 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 • Perkins, 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. Contacts: Jane Hughes and Colleen McKenna J.hughes@hedera.org.ukc.mckenna@hedera.org.uk