threshold concept and troublesome knowledge

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Threshold Concept and Troublesome Knowledge — Jan Meyer and Ray Land Threshold concept: a core learning outcome that represents ‘seeing things in a new way’. May represent or lead to troublesome knowledge, which is knowledge that may be conceptually difficult or counter-intuitive [which may contradict previously held conceptual frameworks] (1). Threshold concepts are likely to be: transformative, possibly irreversible, integrative, bounded (i.e. related to boundaries in disciplines), and potentially troublesome. Knowledge might be troublesome for several given reasons. It might be ritual knowledge, meaning it is used more or less correctly, but not understood deeply. A process of applying it has been learned, but not much more. It may be inert, wherein facts are known, but cannot be worked with in more than a limited way. These actually seem quite similar ... It can be conceptually difficult, which is what it sounds like. It can be alien, which is explained as counter-intuitive or otherwise conflicting with prior knowledge and/or frameworks. There is troublesome language, which includes problems stemming from different uses of words (lay and expert senses), confusion regarding the symbolic and indeterminate nature of language itself. To that point, foreign language studies bring about interesting issues when students realize that there are multiple ways to express things that they know in their own language. Finally there is tacit knowledge. In this case, knowledge exists in a student, but it is not acknowledged as a thing that is known, so much as a thing that is. The example of the musical scale and intervals explains that western students of music understand that there is a musical scale and proper tuning to that scale, but they do not understand that as a choice that was made and thus do not understand that there could be another way of doing it. (I did not know this either) “A further significant issue is that threshold concepts might be interpreted as part of a ‘totalising’ or colonizing view of the curriculum. Such a view would point to the effects of power relations within curricula with threshold concepts serving to provide a measure, and exert a ‘normalizing’ function in the Foucaldian sense (Foucault, 1979, 1980). Whose threshold concepts then becomes a salient question. These are non-trivial concerns and merit further consideration.” (10)

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Threshold Concept and Troublesome Knowledge — Jan Meyer and Ray Land

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Page 1: Threshold Concept and Troublesome Knowledge

Threshold Concept and Troublesome Knowledge — Jan Meyer and Ray Land !Threshold concept: a core learning outcome that represents ‘seeing things in a new way’. May represent or lead to troublesome knowledge, which is knowledge that may be conceptually difficult or counter-intuitive [which may contradict previously held conceptual frameworks] (1). !Threshold concepts are likely to be: transformative, possibly irreversible, integrative, bounded (i.e. related to boundaries in disciplines), and potentially troublesome. !Knowledge might be troublesome for several given reasons. It might be ritual knowledge, meaning it is used more or less correctly, but not understood deeply. A process of applying it has been learned, but not much more. It may be inert, wherein facts are known, but cannot be worked with in more than a limited way. These actually seem quite similar ... !It can be conceptually difficult, which is what it sounds like. It can be alien, which is explained as counter-intuitive or otherwise conflicting with prior knowledge and/or frameworks. There is troublesome language, which includes problems stemming from different uses of words (lay and expert senses), confusion regarding the symbolic and indeterminate nature of language itself. To that point, foreign language studies bring about interesting issues when students realize that there are multiple ways to express things that they know in their own language. !Finally there is tacit knowledge. In this case, knowledge exists in a student, but it is not acknowledged as a thing that is known, so much as a thing that is. The example of the musical scale and intervals explains that western students of music understand that there is a musical scale and proper tuning to that scale, but they do not understand that as a choice that was made and thus do not understand that there could be another way of doing it. (I did not know this either) !!“A further significant issue is that threshold concepts might be interpreted as part of a ‘totalising’ or colonizing view of the curriculum. Such a view would point to the effects of power relations within curricula with threshold concepts serving to provide a measure, and exert a ‘normalizing’ function in the Foucaldian sense (Foucault, 1979, 1980). Whose threshold concepts then becomes a salient question. These are non-trivial concerns and merit further consideration.” (10)