On Threshold Concepts "in the wild"

The link is to a paper Renee Meyers and I presented at the Threshold Concepts; from theory to practice conference in Kingston Ontario, in June. Peter Hadfield contributed to the research and writing but was not able to attend to present, unfortunately. It's fairly self-explanatory (it also explains why this blog has been quiet for a few weeks!) but comments will be welcome.

On advertising styles and teaching styles

On "Thinking Allowed" this week, there was a discussion of advertising, which included the question of differing US and British approaches. In the US, a contributor argued, an agency is expected to sell hard, and full on; it would never be allowed to get away with the British approach, which relies on humour and is frequently quite oblique and sometimes downright obscure.

The typology works in relation to teaching, too. There is pressure from curriculum authorities and validating bodies and assessment regimes to get the message across full on. Spell it out! Simplify! Use technology (even when it can't add anything)! The FE system, and increasingly HE is dominated by this simplistic approach.

My own preference of course is for indirect teaching, rather more like the British approach to advertising. Of course it is not as obvious when it is working, and sadly, increasingly students used to the "US" model find it difficult to relate to. So perhaps it is appropriate that I am retiring.

But I was interested to come across a ten-year-old book this week which—from the kind of critical perspective of ten years ago, but also from the USA—explored quite comprehensibly the nature of the teaching and learning encounter, and how and why the "US model" inhibits learning rather than encourages it.

Ellsworth E (1997) Teaching Positions; difference, pedagogy and the power of address Columbia; Teachers' College Press.

On threshold concepts

I am writing this in Kingston, Ontario, on the evening after the conclusion of a very successful symposium on threshold concepts (for which I can claim no credit at all; I was merely a participant, but thanks are due in particular to Caroline Baillie and her team at Queen's University for a great event).

As academic conferences go, this was a small event, with about 90 participants from a range of countries, institutions and disciplines. Threshold Concepts (TCs) is/are still something of a niche market, but attracting more attention all the time. What are they? See here for my introductory take and useful links at the bottom of the page.

There were many fascinating papers, but here is not the place to attempt a report; if and when that becomes available, I will post the link. But, reflecting more broadly:

Why are TCs gaining attention and popularity? Strangely, the view was expressed several times that although theoretically elegant and practically very useful, their virtue (in the classical sense--one of the sessions I attended this morning was by a classicist) resides in what they represent to academics. This was articulated particularly convincingly by Mick Flanagan of UCL, who is an electrical engineer; and there were many engineers present, which is not usual for a teaching and learning focused event. Mick explained how the pedagogy of engineering has almost stalled over the past decades, and (I exaggerate his more nuanced account) how academics--particularly by implication hard-nosed practical engineers--resent educational/faculty developers descending on the them and telling them how to do their jobs. Proponents of threshold concepts do not come across in that patronising way. They acknowledge subject or disciplinary expertise, and simply want to encourage and support teachers in those disciplines to discover the threshold concepts in the discipline and to find ways teaching and assessing them. The model necessarily implies partnership, acknowledging the precedence of subject expertise.

But! Critical to the emerging corpus of theory and indeed speculation about threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge is the notion of "liminality". What's that? Good question.

• Formally, it derives from the work of anthropologist Victor Turner (1967; The Ritual Process sorry I can't reference the publisher, but I am away from base...) He coined it--roughly--to describe the transitional position of participants in rites of passage and initiations, when they are moving between their previous status and their new one, venturing tentatively into the unknown. It's a good framework.
  
  
• Practically, it is gloriously fuzzy and confused... How do I know? Because of the very unusual concluding plenary. (Actually, it is unusual now, but it was more familiar in the '70s. But that is another story.) We met in an almost circular room with bays around it each containing a table and chairs. Each table had on it several lumps of plasticine (play-dough) and some plastic utensils, and the ad hoc group which gathered around each table was instructed to use those to model, literally, their conception(s) of liminality. The sharing process after that was well done but does not matter for present purposes. I did lots of this kind of stuff thirty years ago, and approached the exercise with resentment, and did not contribute much although I learned a lot from watching and listening; so my apologies to the rest of the group.
  
  
• The picture/image/impression/... which emerged was unmanageably rich. Get that word right; it's not "unimaginable"--far from it--but "unmanageable". And probably irreducible.
  

But some common features were (and here I anticipate Caroline's more detailed account based on photos and reporting back);

• Unpredictability
• Sensations of confusion and disorientation---
• ---which cannot be short-cut

All of which is fascinating to me, because it has been my stock in trade for decades. But I had thought it was confined to distinctively "difficult" areas of learning. Here, there were engineers and economists (I suspect the best represented disciplinary groups) and classicists and historians and... all admitting to the same phenomenon in their students' experience.

What is the main message here? (I was tempted to say "threshold concept", but I forebore. There is a cloud on the horizon the size of someone's hand. What counts as a threshold concept? There were some papers which took a very tight view, demanding that all the published criteria be satisfied, and some which seems to accept that anything students find difficult is a TC; articulating the boundaries may be the next task for the next symposium in Sydney 2010)

The main message, I submit, is to question the view of (pardon the cliche) the "learning journey" implicit in the discourse of instructional technology.

Enough! Scripsi totum da mihi potum.

On priorities in HE

It's not that this says anything new, 0f course, just that it says it again, today.

More sophisticated is this piece by Alan Ryan in the THE.

On reflection on TV

I am gobsmacked. I don't know where to start, This film deserves a book on its own... and it is clearly an instant classic. (I'm assuming that all the complex ethical issues have been addressed.)

So, to invert the usual pattern, here are my reservations/complaints...

• where are the girls?
• the perspective is all hub and spoke: staff and child. Child-child does not figure; although bullying and imitation are doubtless as important as in ordinary schools.
• and the routines? Mealtimes, bedtimes, getting up? They feature in the background, but only insofar as they are arenas for conflict or comfort, and
• of course, the treatment of the outside world is hopeless. You couldn't presumably use anything without waivers? More later.
• and for once I comment with some (limited) authority/background knowledge so I am not taking it all at face value. The producers clearly decided against voiceover explanations; it was a swings and roundabouts call...

The Mulberry Bush has been the epitome of therapeutic child care for half a century or more. It has, I think as an outsider who has never visited, been through several phases of development. As with so many initiatives , it was the vision of a charismatic founder--Barbara Dockar-Drysdale. Amazingly, unlike the Homer Lanes and the George Lywards, it has survived its founder and taken its own wing. In the process it has become more pragmatic, less ideologically Kleinian and perhaps more humble...

But this film is much more hard-headed. It shows that the "emotionally and behaviourally disturbed" label does not mean "mildly upset and stroppy"; it is about children emerging from the extremes of abuse. And it shows just what is involved for the staff. The title is exactly right; it really is about holding and letting go, literally and metaphorically. And, given that those staff are real live human beings who find it difficult---see them choose the constructive and therapeutic response in the face of extreme provocation, from moment to moment---and respect it.

Thirty years ago now, I was privileged to work with students who were already serving staff at other similar institutions, usually for older children, and those who worked in the unsung "bog-standard" local authority sector. I supposedly taught them something on the basis of my academic credentials, and on the whole they were kind to me in listening to my irrelevant drivel. Much more important for me was the experience of visiting them on practical placement. OK, they had a standard "defence" ----"What do you expect me to do when the whole set-up is crap?" (As indeed it was, much of the time, for good reasons which have nothing to do with this blog...) Beyond that, their expertise; their social skills, their empathy, their emotional intelligence (if we have to call it that) their second to second decision-making about how to respond most constructively to an instance of bullying, bad news from home, sheer stroppiness, being haunted by memories of abuse, not liking cabbage--was and is amazing.

And this film, beneath the surface, is about all that.

More generally, I am aware that I probably saw more in that film than the average naive viewer.

What does that imply for its use in teaching? Discuss....

On surfing in class

Since I don't teach young undergrads any more, is the situation described now common in UK classrooms too?