WHY DON’T THEY GET IT? THRESHOLD CONCEPTS = TROUBLESOME

KNOWLEDGE

WHAT ARE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS?

The central, defining truths in a given discipline, the ideas that open a gateway to deeper understanding. The essential, indispensable elements, the understandings that transform the novice into a true practitioner of the field. Experts consider those who do not grasp their discipline’s threshold concepts not to be legitimate practitioners. 2

WHY ARE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS ‘TROUBLESOME’?

“From the point of view of the expert, [a threshold concept] is an idea which gives shape and structure to the subject, but it is inaccessible to the novice.” Jan H. F. Meyer and Ray Land

3

TROUBLESOME!

Teachers often assess student work for understanding of threshold concepts without explicitly discussing or prioritizing them in class.This creates frustration for both students and teachers.

4

STUDENTS DON’T WANT TO THINK

“When we can get away with it, we don’t think. Instead we rely on memory.” Cognitive Scientist Daniel T. Willingham

WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO THE STUDENT

Before Learning TCs After Crossing the Threshold

Knowing what’s on the test

Thinking right

Finishing a task Knowing how to do a task

Figuring out the teacher

Solving the problem

THRESHOLD CONCEPTS ARE…A THRESHOTCONCEPT IS

• Transformative: It changes the way we think • Troublesome: The ideas seem counterintuitive or alien

to novices • Irreversible: It’s impossible to return to the old mindset

once the concept is learned.

AND ALSO…

• Foreign: Like learning a new language

• Reconstitutive: Character altering

• Disorienting: Initially confusing • and ambiguous

“Memory is the residue of thought.” Daniel T Willingham

WE CAN’T TELL STUDENTS THE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS—THEY MUST DISCOVER THEM

Students must explore situations that engage the concepts. They must compare reality to their preconceived notions, and may have to change their way of thinking. They begin to think more like practitioners in the discipline. Once students pass through the gateway of understanding, there is no going back to prior beliefs. The corrected concept has embedded itself in the student’s worldview. 9

EXAMPLES OF THRESHOLD CONCEPTS

• Art is discourse • History = competing narratives•We are “situated” in culture• Texts are constructed• Essays should open, not close ideas• Force produces acceleration, not

velocity

Learning TCs gives students a new “framework” for understanding the world

MORE EXAMPLES OF THRESHOLD CONCEPTS

• Poems hold competing ideas in eternal conflict.• Societies (and individuals) define themselves in

opposition to an “other.”• Many human endeavors have unintended consequences

on the environment, even measures taken to protect it.• Opportunity cost, or the cost of forgoing a different

choice, is the real cost of any decision and must be factored into decision-making.

11

TC’S CHANGE WHO YOU ARE

“Mastering concepts requires that I connect theory to basic models and equations and explain why they work, or why they will not work.” Physics student

SOME TEACHERS MIGHT SAY “I DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH TC’S: I JUST TEACH CONTENT”

BUT THRESHOLD CONCEPTS =THE PASSION OF THE DISCIPLINE!

It's not the idea of harmful agricultural practices that hooks the future environmentalist, but the hope that his effort will help revitalize our food supply.

It’s not because she likes solving polynomials that drives a math expert, but the fact that math explains the beauty of nature.

For true practitioners these aren't just the icing on the cake—they are the cake, the reason they commit their lives to their disciplines.

14

SO HOW DO WE IDENTIFY OUR DISCIPLINE’S

THRESHOLD CONCEPTS?

IT’S A THRESHOLD CONCEPT IF

…it take excessive time and effort to learn.

…it changes students’ way of thinking.

…to you, it’s “obvious.” (that’s why you haven’t identified it yet)

WHY DO TC’S MATTER? BECAUSE LEARNING IS NOT…

Stuffing our students heads with rules, and information. They forget it right after the test.

They must engage with the topic in depth, discover the threshold concepts, and embed their new understanding in theirminds.

LEARNING IS

The process of creating and revising mental schemas as we interact with the world and see how it works. We refine our schemas when we have new experiences of reality that reveal anomalies in our existing schemas. TCsare crucial.

STUDENTS HAVE TO CONSTRUCT THEIR OWN SCHEMAS

“What we see changes what we know. What we know changes what we see. “ Jean Piaget

“Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, ad each time we try to teach them something too quickly, we keep them from reinventing it themselves.” Jean Piaget

WE SHOULDN’T TEACH CONTENT—WE SHOULD LET THEM LEARN IT!

We must engineer experiences so that students process information and then invent and revise their mental schemas. Key schemas = Threshold Concepts

COURSE DESIGN IMPLICATIONS

• Identify 5-7 main TCs (harder than it sounds!)• What were your epiphanies? These might be Threshold

Concepts• TCs aren’t facts, but value statements; statements of truth.• They are unique to your discipline.• It helps to get an outsider’s view • THEN, Organize your course • around your TCs

TEACHING IMPLICATIONS

Don’t Do

Repeat Explanations Make students confront misconceptions Don’t Do Oversimplify Assess their thinking process

5 IMAGES BORROWED FROM

Ray Land—The inventor of the concept of Threshold Concepts

Land, R. (2010) Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: A Transformative Approach to Learning. Keynote Address at the New Zealand Association of Bridging Educators 9th National Conference, 29 September to 1 October 2010, Wellington, New Zealand: http://www.utdc.vuw.ac.nz.events/RayLand/201009RayLandSlides.ppt

ABOUT ME CAROLE HAMILTON

• I’m a retired English teacher who has researched extensively in how students learn and how best to teach to how they learn. I hope you enjoy my presentations. Look for my new book on how new insights from cognitive science can improve how we teach.

23