Authors: Jan H.F. Meyer
ISBN-13: 9780415374309, ISBN-10: 0415374308
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Taylor & Francis, Inc.
Date Published: June 2006
Edition: 1ST
Overcoming Barriers to Student Learning explores why certain students "get stuck" at particular points in the curriculum whilst others grasp concepts with comparative ease. It proposes a "threshold concepts" approach to the curriculum, arguing that in certain disciplines there are "conceptual gateways" or "portals" that lead to previously inaccessible, and initially perhaps "troublesome," ways of thinking about something. A new way of understanding, interpreting, or viewing a topic may thus emerge - having a transformative effect on internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view.
While maintaining that knowledge should indeed be "troubling" in order for it to be transformative, this book provides new perspectives on helping students through such conceptual difficulty in order to enhance learning and teaching environments in higher education, and in other educational sectors. It discusses:
· ways of dealing with the kinds of anxiety, self-doubt and frustration that learning can evoke in students
· how we might help our students not to avoid the troublesomeness, but to feel more confident in coping with it, resolving it and moving on with confidence
· what might account for variation in student performance when dealing with concepts
· what teachers might do in relation to the design and teaching of their courses that could help students overcome such barriers to their learning
· what makes particular areas of knowledge more troublesome than others
The illustrative case studies presented here will help teachers analyze their own practice. Overcoming Barriers to Student Learning will serve the needs of educational researchers and developers, and academics within various disciplines who wish to learn more about threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge.
1 | Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge : an introduction | 3 |
2 | Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge : issues of liminality | 19 |
3 | Constructivism and troublesome knowledge | 33 |
4 | Metacognition, affect, and conceptual difficulty | 48 |
5 | Threshold concepts : how can we recognise them? | 70 |
6 | Threshold concepts in biology : do they fit the definition? | 87 |
7 | The troublesome nature of a threshold concept in economics | 100 |
8 | Threshold concepts in economics : a case study | 115 |
9 | Threshold concepts, troublesome knowledge and emotional capital : an exploration into learning about others | 134 |
10 | Developing new 'world views' : threshold concepts in introductory accounting | 148 |
11 | Disjunction as a form of troublesome knowledge in problem-based learning | 160 |
12 | On the mastery of philosophical concepts : Socratic discourse and the unexpected 'affect' | 173 |
13 | Using analogy in science teaching as a bridge to students' understanding of complex issues | 182 |
Conclusion : implications of threshold concepts for course design and evaluation | 195 |