Crossing thresholds: identifying threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge in practice-based learning

Ellen SimsUniversity of the Arts, London

The aims of this workshop are to:

• Explain the notions of threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge

• Identify threshold concepts in your discipline

• Explore the interactions that may progress learning, identity and participation.

Thresholds concepts

• Meyer and Land (2003, 2005)

• Conceptual ‘gateways’ or ‘portals’:

A new way of understanding, interpreting or viewing something...a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view.’ (2005 p373)

Threshold concepts may be:

• Transformative• Shifting perception

• Irreversible• Unlearnable

• Integrative• Exposing inter-relatedness

• Bounded• Bordering with other thresholds or new

conceptual spaces

Reflect: Question 1

What are some examples of threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge in your own experience/practice? • When in the learning process did these

occur?

Ways of knowing, acting and being expected to fully

participate in your discipline.

Student journey from novice to expert.

What are some of the threshold concepts in your subject? Where do they occur? Are they hierarchical? List the threshold concepts on the post-its.

Thinking about the TCs, what might a visual metaphor for your

students’ journey look like? Draw a diagram

and place the TCs on it where you think they

might occur.

Troublesome knowledge

Threshold concepts themselves may be troublesome or lead to troublesome knowledge.• Concepts or knowledge difficult to grasp• Concepts that clash, compete or interact• Gaining new as well as letting go of old

understandings and beliefs• Misunderstanding, feigning understanding:

liminality (‘stuckness’)

Troublesome emotions

• Stemming from liminality• Inability to move forward

• Emotional response to the concept• Working against dearly held or ingrained beliefs• Moving out of comfort zone• Resistance to change

• What might some of these emotions be?

• What might be troublesome for your students?

• How can you facilitate their getting past being ‘stuck’?

• What interactions do you do now to progress the journey?

• What can you do in general and specifically to address the troublesome-ness?

• How important is the emotional dimension?

Learning and identity

Wenger (1998) stresses the importance of developing an identity, learning the ways of being and behaving in a particular community of practice

Meyer and Land (2003, 2005) also discuss identity, suggesting that progress is dependent on the mastery of threshold concepts, which are characterised in part as being transformative and potentially leading to a shift in identity, values and/or attitude without which the learner cannot progress.

Whilst they may be required to be self-motivated and able to ‘do it’, students will be expected to know who is doing what in the world beyond the university and positioning themselves in relation to that. Students are becoming practitioners and this is an emphasis on the ontological aspects of learning, ‘knowing, acting and being’ (Dall'Alba and Barnacle, 2007). They are learning what it means to be part of the practice, not simply about how to do it, but what it means to be a...

Identity of participation

• Language and discourse we use and understand

• Who we are and what we do• The structures and groups with which we

interact• Our powers to exclude or include• Where we situate our expertise

My final collection aims to challenge the ideas towards sustainable design and hopes to create a collection that has emotional attachments to their consumers aiding their longevity.

I have looked into traditional craft techniques of production and meanings within cloth and used these ideas through contemporary practice.

I love colour and textures and am very interested in changing the way we view our clothing and how they are made under ethical and sustainable concepts.

Through my bespoke tartan collection, I would like to further my passion for traditional and sustainable design. I am currently involved within Shared Talent India, combining UK and Indian based designers to create a contemporary and innovative ethical and sustainable collection that will be showcased within London and Indian fashion weeks Autumn 2009.

Map-making and the process of 'mapping' fascinates me: in particular, the relationship between the 'explorer' and the 'recorder' where, by simultaneously imposing and relinquishing control, rules and boundaries can be broken and crossed. This hopefully enables the resulting work to escape the confines of its initial deterministic methodology and achieve the unexpected.

I actively encourage the inclusion of chance and random interference in the process, making it possible for me to study the disparity between logical and irrational behaviour.

A painterly exploration of colour and form facilitates an intuitive working process which references everyday visual experience.

I enjoy letting the paint take some control of the process, allowing unidentifiable forms to develop through the layers of paint. I work quite quickly on many paintings at a time, letting the brush shape and consistency of paint influence the mark making, leaving a fresh, rhythmic energy.

My practice playfully explores a tension between abstract notions of depth relating to the flat painting surface and depth that we relate to visual experience – what it feels like to look at something in a space (and to be looked back at).

In your experience, in what ways is the development of identity of participation linked to threshold concepts?

• Are there any specific thresholds to cross in terms of progression to being an artist or designer?

• What teaching and learning interactions might contribute to successful transformation and formation of identity? How might emotions be involved?

• Can the development of disciplinary identity be linked to 'threshold identities‘ to progress through? What might those identities be?