Theory of the threshold concepts
| Dates: | 29 October 2014 |
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| Times: | 13:00 - 14:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Faculty of Life Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Alumni, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Professor Ray Land |
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This seminar is part of the Teaching and Learning seminar series. The seminar will take place in the Lecture Theatre 5 Stopford Building on Wednesday 29 October 2014 from 1-2pm.
Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: a Transformative Approach to Learning - Professor Ray Land This presentation will outline the Threshold Concepts analytical framework which can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about a topic. It represents a transformative view of learning, without which the learner cannot progress to a fuller understanding, and involves an ontological shift. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. This transformation may be sudden or protracted, with the transition to understanding often involving encounters with 'troublesome knowledge'. Depending on discipline and context, knowledge might be troublesome because it is ritualised, inert, conceptually difficult, alien or tacit, because it requires adopting an unfamiliar discourse, or perhaps because the learner remains ‘defended’, resisting the inevitable shift in subjectivity that threshold concepts initiate. Difficulty in understanding threshold concepts may leave the learner in a state of 'liminality', a suspended state or 'stuck place' in which understanding approximates to a kind of 'mimicry' or lack of authenticity. (Further information, with reference to over a thousand papers on this topic, catalogued by discipline, is available at: http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html)
Ray Land is Professor of Higher Education at Durham University and Director of Durham’s Centre for Academic Practice. He is best known for his theory (with Jan Meyer) of Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. His latest book (with George Gordon) is Enhancing Quality in Higher Education: International Perspectives (Routledge 2013).
For further information about this event, contact: Maggy.Fostier@manchester.ac.uk Dr Maggy Fostier
+44 (0)161 275 4193
Speaker
Professor Ray Land
Organisation: Durham University
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Lecture Theatre 5
Stopford Building
Manchester
