Threshold Concepts in Vocational and Professional Higher Education

Slides of a session given on 3 July 2014 at University Centre Grimsby's 2nd Learning and Teaching Conference. Additional notes available via www.doceo.co.uk/grimsby

Transcript

1. Threshold Concepts in Vocational and Professional HE James Atherton at University Centre Grimsby 3 July 2014
2. (Conventions) Square callouts like this have been added as explanatory notes to the online version. [1] points to numbered note/source/link Rounded (and paler) callouts like this were part of the original Intro Badges in a corner show where you are in the presentation, according to the mindmap on the next slide
3. Intro... A bumpy ride? Hunting the snark Recap. (if needed) Threshold Concepts and Vocational HE 01/07/2014 - v5 Who am I? Who are you? What do you know? Session ground rules and follow-up Liminality Context Issue/challenge Examples Problems
4. Intro... Recap. (if needed) Who am I? Who are you? What do you know? Session ground rules and follow-up Examples Problems
5. What do you teach? • Business/ Logistics/ Management • Construction • Creative Arts/ Media/ Performance • Health and Social Care/ Early Years/ Community Studies/ Hair and Beauty/ • Sport / Leisure • STEM (inc. Computing)
6. What do you teach? 29% 4% 0% 42% 4% 21% Business/ Logistics/ Management Construction Creative Arts/ Media/ Performance Health and Social Care/ Early Years/ Community Studies/ Hair and Beauty/ Sport / Leisure STEM (inc. Computing) n = 24
7. What can I assume you know about Threshold concepts? • Nothing (not true, of course) • A bit, but I’d like it consolidated… • Quite a bit in theory, but unsure in practice • I am working at using the idea in practice
8. What can I assume you know about Threshold concepts? 65% 25% 0% 10% Nothing A bit, but I’d like it consolidated… Quite a bit in theory, but unsure in practice I am working at using the idea in practice 1 person, but didn’t show in %
9. Ways of thinking and practising Intro This is where the impetus for the whole idea came from [1] known as “WTP”
10. “He’ll pass the assessments and get his degree, but he’ll never think like an engineer.” Intro A succinct comment about one of his students from a colleague taking the MA in Learning and Teaching at de Montfort University
11. Ways of thinking and practising Intro
12. Ways of thinking and practising A major issue in vocational/ professional education Intro
13. Ways of thinking and practising A major issue in vocational/ professional education Consider what light threshold concepts can throw on them Intro General point of the session (at this level I don’t do “objectives” etc.)
14. Ways of thinking and practising A major issue in vocational/ professional education Consider what light threshold concepts can throw on them ...and implications for curriculum and pedagogy
15. Intro This amorphous field represents the way of thinking and practising of an unspecified profession/vocation/job
16. Political/ Economic Context Intro We respond to the need for training by trying to cover it with modules on what we know how to teach and assess [2]
17. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Intro
18. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Ethics Intro
19. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Ethics Philosophies / models of Practice Intro
20. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Ethics Philosophies / models of Practice Discipline- Specific Theory Intro
21. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Ethics Philosophies / models of Practice Discipline- Specific Theory Technology Intro
22. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Ethics Philosophies / models of Practice Discipline- Specific Theory Professional Studies Technology Intro
23. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Ethics Philosophies / models of Practice Discipline- Specific Theory Professional Studies Technology Intro
24. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Ethics Philosophies / models of Practice Discipline- Specific Theory Professional Studies Technology Practice skills Intro These are all just generic examples of taught content on many vocational HE courses
25. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Ethics Philosophies / models of Practice Discipline- Specific Theory Professional Studies Technology Practice skills Intro There is still a lot of the green WTP background not addressed These are all just generic examples of taught content on many vocational HE courses
26. Political/ Economic Context Legal Aspects Ethics Philosophies / models of Practice Discipline- Specific Theory Professional Studies Technology Practice skills Generic work skills Intro And as well as stuff not covered which ought to be, there may well be stuff covered which never really features as part of the WTP
27. Situated Learning (a.k.a. “sitting next to Nellie”) Initial interaction is with other new entrants Progress is being allowed to take on more key, or risky, tasks The boundary is constantly moving Initial interaction is with other new entrants Progress is being allowed to take on more key, or risky, tasks Note: Lave & Wenger explicitly reject this kind of depiction of their model The boundary is constantly moving Intro
28. Situated Learning (a.k.a. “sitting next to Nellie”) Initial interaction is with other new entrants Progress is being allowed to take on more key, or risky, tasks The boundary is constantly moving Initial interaction is with other new entrants Progress is being allowed to take on more key, or risky, tasks Note: Lave & Wenger explicitly reject this kind of depiction of their model The boundary is constantly moving Intro Note [3]
29. Based on Wenger E (1998) Communities of Practice Cambridge; CUP p. 63 Participation Reification meaning world experience negotiation living in the world membership acting interacting mutuality forms points of focus documents monuments instruments projection Intro Note [4]
30. Rite of Passage Initial Status Initiation Marginal (Liminal) Status Return New Status Time Intro Note [5]
31. Ways of thinking and practising A major issue in vocational/ professional education Consider what light threshold concepts can throw on them Intro
32. Intro Intro... A bumpy ride? Hunting the snark Recap. (if needed) Threshold Concepts and Vocational HE 01/07/2014 - v5 Who am I? Who are you? What do you know? Session ground rules and follow-up Liminality Context Issue/challenge Examples Problems
33. Intro A bumpy ride? Recap. (if needed) Session ground rules and follow-up Liminality Context Issue/challenge Examples Problems Note [6]
34. • "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, 2006:3) Recap.
35. Recap. Note [7]
36. • “Wood is made out of thin air and sunlight and water? Get real!” • “The cost of production has nothing to do with price? Rubbish!” • “So you are saying that the fact that someone’s legs don’t work is not a disability? Come on!” • “In a vacuum, a feather falls at the same speed as a lead shot? No way!” Recap. Note [8]
37. The sharpest tool is the safest tool e.g.
38. Keep your eye on the ball. e.g.
39. Keep your eye on the ball. e.g. Not all threshold topics are simply conceptual
40. “Well, that was a waste of time. I could have been doing something/anything else more productively” (potential response to previous Study Day) e.g.
41. “Well, that was a waste of time. I could have been doing something/anything else more productively” (potential response to previous Study Day) e.g. Intuitive understanding of opportunity cost, a TC in economics
42. Once I can read— I can’t not read Once I can read— I can’t not read e.g. Note [9]
43. Skills Concepts Perspectives Note [10]
44. Always use a hand basin provided exclusively for washing hands Use comfortably hot water. Rub your hands vigorously to work in the soap Don’t forget the areas in between your fingers and around your wrists Rinse your hands before drying them Wash your hands properly Hmm… Note [11] This is where we move into the ontological aspect of TCs…
45. “Patriarchy is a threshold concept in women’s studies—a significant, defining concept that transforms students’ understanding of the discipline. This article reviews our design, implementation, and findings of a lesson study crafted to teach women’s studies students the complex idea of patriarchy as a social system.” Hassel H, Reddinger A, Van Slooten J (2011) “Surfacing the Structures of Patriarchy: Teaching and Learning Threshold Concepts in Women’s Studies” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Vol. 5, No. 2 (on-line, retrieved from http://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/v5n2/articles/Hassel_et_al/index.html 14 Nov 2011) Hmm… Note [12]
46. A student who exceeds expectations A student who meets expectations A student who fails to meet expectations Can explain and provide specific examples of the values of patriarchy as evident in multiple artifacts of popular culture. Can recognize and provide a specific example of the values of patriarchy as evident in one or more artifacts of popular culture. Does not recognize the values of patriarchy as evident in artifacts of popular culture. Hmm…
47. “[how] my students become “stuck” and hopefully “unstuck” with the threshold concept of Whiteness and its very real implications for their work with urban children and youth. [...] the theorizing and making sense of Whiteness as a structural force that has the great potential to hinder and stall White urban teachers’ work with their students and perpetuate passive racism (Marx, 2006). “College students from a variety of [...] backgrounds come to college campuses having been socialized into the national rhetoric of a “colorblind American Dream,” in which everyone has the same chance to achieve, and racism is restricted to individual acts of bigotry. As such, the threshold concept of racism as a system of advantage based on race is often something students struggle to understand and with which they are initially uncomfortable. Some students remain highly resistant, and struggle with later concepts that build upon this understanding. In this study, I want to measure how and when student thinking about racism shifts over the fifteen weeks of the semester during which they are enrolled in my class.
48. “Awareness of the concept that 'energy' exists. Methods that I have used to bring about this awareness include encouraging students to sense each others' energy field, forming Reiki energy balls and working on seeing auras.” Cert Ed student 2007 Hmmm… Note [13]
49. Plato; Republic Book lll Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. [...] Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it? Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them. Oh…
50. Plato; Republic Book lll Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. [...] Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it? Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them. Oh… But it has all been known for at least 24 centuries!
51. Intro... A bumpy ride? Hunting the snark Recap. (if needed) Threshold Concepts and Vocational HE 01/07/2014 - v5 Who am I? Who are you? What do you know? Session ground rules and follow-up Liminality Context Issue/challenge Examples Problems
52. A bumpy ride? Hunting the snark Recap. (if needed) Liminality Context Issue/challenge Examples Problems
53. Threshold concepts have both  epistemological and  ontological elements Liminality
54. Time Knowledge/ skill etc. Liminality Note [14]
55. Time Knowledge/ skill etc. This is a stylised “learning curve”, a fantasy of incremental progress Liminality
56. Time Knowledge/ skill etc. This is a stylised “learning curve”, a fantasy of incremental progress Liminality
57. Time Knowledge/ skill etc. This is a stylised “learning curve”, a fantasy of incremental progress ...and this is the more realistic curve associated with learning a threshold concept Liminality
58. Time Knowledge/ skill etc. This is a stylised “learning curve”, a fantasy of incremental progress ...and this is the more realistic curve associated with learning a threshold concept in particular, this is the Liminal Trough Liminality
59. Rite of Passage Initial Status Initiation Marginal (Liminal) Status Return New Status Time Liminality
60. Liminality is risky (and so are TCs) Liminality
61. Risk is toxic Liminality
62. Context Note [15]
63. So... Context
64. Context Issue
65. EdExcel 2010 Issue
66. [...] I could see that she was following the required Scheme of Work […] to the letter. The handout declared authoritatively that there are four theories [...] and the teacher was supposed to "get through" these at the rate of ten minutes each, and to test that they had been "learned" [...] The students, rather sadly, were bored but compliant. They "researched" allocated topics [...] , and paraphrased what they found and the relevant paragraph from the handout. […] They spoke when spoken to, but volunteered nothing. They exhibited a weary familiarity with yet more half-understood gobbets of information they were supposed to "learn", without a clue as to why. The teacher told them they could “tick off” their first Unit objective […] post-observation discussion. I checked on the academic/vocational level of the programme (3; the next level below first-year undergraduate level). She agreed it was dumbed-down to near meaninglessness, because that is seen as the way to get the students to "achieve". The bottom line is that they must not drop out. (Atherton, 2010) Issue
67. Issue
68. • [...] For an irrelevant reason, the teacher decides to address all the “P” level objectives first (for the whole syllabus), and then to revisit the “M” criteria and possibly the “D”s if there is time. • [...] a student has encountered what is for him a threshold concept, and pipes up with, “But doesn’t that mean that...” and goes on to identify several more “functions of the firm” which go beyond the current topic but clearly now make sense to him. • He is shut down, “We’re not doing that until next term—don’t confuse other people!” Issue
69. • Entry level ESOL class • Trying “naked” teaching • Changed rooms at last minute “...almost visible cognitive processes going on as one learner [...] started to answer, fell silent, [...], I again opened it up to the rest of the group. No significant answer, lots of thinking and, crucially silence for a few moments until the original learner came up with “university” (albeit mispronounced). A lovely lovely moment, and it wouldn’t have happened if I’d leapt in and told him.” Sam Shepherd’s blog: 14 June 2012 (his emphasis) Liminality
70. So... No room for, can’t afford liminality Issue
71. which represents loss of control Issue
72. It represents loss of control and hence increasing anxiety Issue
73. which represents loss of control and hence increasing anxiety For managers
74. which represents loss of control and hence increasing anxiety For managers For teachers
75. which represents loss of control and hence increasing anxiety For managers For teachers …and for students
76. Ways of thinking and practising A major issue in vocational/ professional education Consider what light threshold concepts can throw on them ...and implications for curriculum and pedagogy
77. “The idea of threshold concepts carries an important pedagogical message: where we can find likely threshold concepts, we would do well to organise learning around them … [T]here is a cost, … but one generally worth paying. Threshold concepts are likely to be troublesome… Their reorganising power brings with it an unfamiliarity that sometimes proves acute and off-putting. You can’t re-balance the boat without rocking it.” Perkins D (2008) “Beyond Understanding” in R Land, J Meyer and J Smith (eds.) Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines Rotterdam; Sense Publishers, 2008 p. 13 Issue
78. Intro... A bumpy ride? Hunting the snark Recap. (if needed) Threshold Concepts and Vocational HE 01/07/2014 - v5 Who am I? Who are you? What do you know? Session ground rules and follow-up Liminality Context Issue/challenge Examples Problems
79. A bumpy ride? Hunting the snark Recap. (if ne eshold epts and ional HE /2014 - v5 Li C Is
80. "'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day, If your Snark be a Boojum! For then You will softly and suddenly vanish away, And never be met with again!' (Lewis Carroll, 1876)
81. How are you going to identify the TCs at the centre of your discipline?
82. How are you going to identify the TCs at the centre of your discipline? This is a methodological question, not about the answers.
83. How are you going to identify the TCs at the centre of your discipline? This is a methodological question, not about the answers. TCs are discipline- specific and perhaps context- specific…
84. How are you going to identify the TCs at the centre of your discipline? This is a methodological question, not about the answers. TCs are discipline- specific and perhaps context- specific… Let’s improve the question. You have already done it. How will you know if you have chosen the best TCs?
85. Changes how a topic is understood Qualities which may add up to a TC
86. Changes how a topic is understood Hard to assess; Many proxies
87. Changes how a topic is understood Misunderstanding often not apparent until later Hard to assess; Many proxies
88. Changes how a topic is understood Misunderstanding often not apparent until later Hard to assess; Many proxies Misunderstanding disproportionate to technical difficulty
89. Changes how a topic is understood Misunderstanding often not apparent until later Hard to assess; Many proxies Misunderstanding disproportionate to technical difficulty Back-sliding!
90. Changes how a topic is understood Misunderstanding often not apparent until later Hard to assess; Many proxies Misunderstanding disproportionate to technical difficulty Back-sliding! TC
91. How are you going to identify the TCs at the centre of your discipline? ? Minutes in practice- area based ad hoc groups.
92. • Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason. John Keats (1817) • Confused at a higher level than before Various sources • 'Here I am, a "one-off" job; Think I'll go away, 'ave a sob. I can't even say who I am Oh! Bloody Hell, sod and damn!‘ He comments: "I see this as heralding a new beginning, in learning terms, for this student" More 1974:70 Odd thoughts: note 16