Project Events
The project has organised two series of seminars which will take place in Cambridge during late 2006 and early 2007.
Seminar Series A: Threshold Concepts in the Disciplines
Seminar Series A, which took place in November and December 2007, took the form of three practical seminars based in Cambridge, involving senior and junior academic staff from a range of disciplines and institutions: Engineering, English Literature, Comparative Religion, Social Anthropology, Materials Science, Computer Science, Plant Science and Biomedical and Health Science and Sports Science. These seminars explored teacher and student perspectives on the teaching and learning of threshold concepts. We were keen to identify areas of commonality and difference in how threshold concepts are represented and addressed in teaching and learning and have found disciplinary differences in how they are identified and conceptualised; physical scientists, for example, tend to be most interested in their transformative potential for individual learners ('eureka moments'), while bioscientists stress their integrative, cross-disciplinary role ('big ideas'). In other disciplines (notably social sciences, arts and humanities) they are more often characterised as being an element of discipline-specific and theory-laden 'ways of seeing' (Hanson, 1958) or 'ways of thinking and practicing' (Entwistle, 2005).
The descriptions, metaphors and analogies used by participants to describe the role and scope of Threshold Concepts in learning go beyond ascertaining how they might be identified. They also point up epistemological and pedagogical differences across disciplines which represent a significant challenge for a project which is primarily concerned with enabling and encouraging interdisciplinary discussions and activities. This is particularly evident where this project represents a first opportunity for participants (both teachers and students) to engage with learning theories and take part in structured discourse about teaching and learning. While we recognise that there are 'many meanings of theory and practice' (Eraut, 2003) and that the teachers with whom we are working have 'theories' of teaching and learning, these are largely oriented towards 'mastery' and achievement on the part of individual students; according to this perspective, identification of Threshold Concepts may be perceived as an element in the 'problem solution' space, rather than a point of focus in that of 'problem formulation'.
Seminar Series B: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Threshold Concepts
A parallel series of three one-day seminars has brought together representatives of different disciplines with the intention of exploring areas of commonality and difference in conceptual models, ontologies and methodologies related to threshold concepts, and of developing interdisciplinary approaches to further research.
Seminar 1: Interdisciplinary Perspectives of Threshold Concepts - 15th January 2007
The seminar established the disciplinary 'starting points' of participants from Education, Social Anthropology, Psychology and Philosophy, who presented short 'position papers'. The case studies generated in Seminar Series A - which formed a poster display before and during the seminar itself (see an example, left) - served as points of focus for participants and presenters, and formed the basis of a series of discussions and other activities designed to identify areas of commonality and difference in conceptualisations, models of learners and learning, ontologies and methodologies for further study. The seminar concluded with discussion from the perspective of critical pedagogy, and a keynote address by Professor Ray Land from the University of Strathclyde.
Seminar 2: Enhancing Teaching and Learning of Threshold Concepts with Technology - 22nd February 2007
This seminar will take as its starting point the ESRC/EPSRC/E-Science e-Learning Research Agenda. It will focus specifically on the range of technologies currently available (or will need to emerge) in order to effectively support teaching and learning of threshold concepts. The day will fall broadly into two sections. The first session will consist of papers on the space and discourse of social software, including the relationship between software developers and users, and the second session will consist of realisations and implementations of domain knowledge within online resources. To this end we are looking to include examples of concept mapping, case studies, and texts, in order to explore the epistemological considerations in producing actual technological solutions. This will lead to the development of a set of more broadly-scoped reference models for learning environments capable of supporting the kinds of teaching and learning activities informed by the interdisciplinary, cross-domain work of the project. The seminar will conclude with a keynote address by Professor Tom Boyle of London Metropolitan University.
Seminar 3: Academic Rites of Passage: Liminality and Conceptual Change amongst PhD students in the Arts and Humanities - 9th March 2007, in collaboration with CRASSH, University of Cambridge
Threshold Concepts are considered to be akin to 'passing through a portal' or 'conceptual gateway' that opens up 'previously inaccessible way[s] of thinking about something' (Meyer and Land 2003). The state prior to this transformation in understanding is held to be liminal, a stage in which one has yet to pass over the threshold, to understand things in a new way. The aim of this workshop is to explore the notion of conceptual change in relation to the experiences of PhD students in the Arts and Humanities.
Following a presentation by members of the project team, Professor Vernon Trafford (Anglia Ruskin University) will lead a discussion which will address questions such as:
- How does the notion of a threshold concept sit with the idea of emergent knowledge?
- Does awareness of conceptual change only happen retrospectively as a consequence of critical reflection?
- How does this relate to the writing process of a PhD dissertation in which understanding is often assumed to be the consequence of analysis and reflection on 'data', whatever this might be?
- What might this say about the structure of the PhD. research process in which one is often urged to formulate research questions at the outset of one's investigation?
- Does this more deductive approach really apply to the ways that people 'do' PhDs? Are thresholds only passed through once, or are they constantly revisited?
|
|
|
|