A description of what Threshold Concepts are and why they matter to how we teach.

1. WHY DON’T THEY GET IT?
THRESHOLD CONCEPTS = TROUBLESOME
KNOWLEDGE

2. WHAT ARE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS?
The central, defining truths in a given
discipline, the ideas that open a gateway to
deeper understanding.
The essential, indispensable elements, the
understandings that transform the novice into a
true practitioner of the field.
Experts consider those who do not grasp their
discipline’s threshold concepts not to be
legitimate practitioners. 2

3. WHY ARE THRESHOLD CONCEPTS
‘TROUBLESOME’?
“From the point of view of the expert,
[a threshold concept] is an idea which
gives shape and structure to the subject,
but it is inaccessible to the novice.” Jan
H. F. Meyer and Ray Land
3

4. TROUBLESOME!
Teachers often assess student work for
understanding of threshold concepts without
explicitly discussing or prioritizing them in class.
This creates frustration for both students and
teachers.
4

5. STUDENTS DON’T WANT TO THINK
“When we can get away with it, we don’t think.
Instead we rely on memory.”
Cognitive Scientist Daniel T. Willingham

6. WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO THE STUDENT
Before Learning TCs After Crossing the Threshold
Knowing what’s on
the test
Thinking right
Finishing a task Knowing how to do a
task
Figuring out the
teacher
Solving the problem

7. THRESHOLD CONCEPTS ARE…A
THRESHOTCONCEPT IS
• Transformative: It changes the way we think
• Troublesome: The ideas seem counterintuitive or alien
to novices
• Irreversible: It’s impossible to return to the old mindset
once the concept is learned.

8. AND ALSO…
• Foreign: Like learning a new language
• Reconstitutive: Character altering
• Disorienting: Initially confusing
• and ambiguous
“Memory is the residue of thought.”
Daniel T Willingham

9. WE CAN’T TELL STUDENTS THE THRESHOLD
CONCEPTS—THEY MUST DISCOVER THEM
Students must explore situations that engage the
concepts.
They must compare reality to their preconceived
notions, and may have to change their way of thinking.
They begin to think more like practitioners in the
discipline.
Once students pass through the gateway of
understanding, there is no going back to prior beliefs.
The corrected concept has embedded itself in the
student’s worldview. 9

10. EXAMPLES OF THRESHOLD CONCEPTS
• Art is discourse
• History = competing narratives
• We are “situated” in culture
• Texts are constructed
• Essays should open, not close ideas
• Force produces acceleration, not
velocity
Learning TCs gives students a new
“framework” for understanding the world

11. MORE EXAMPLES OF THRESHOLD
CONCEPTS
• Poems hold competing ideas in eternal conflict.
• Societies (and individuals) define themselves in
opposition to an “other.”
• Many human endeavors have unintended consequences
on the environment, even measures taken to protect it.
• Opportunity cost, or the cost of forgoing a different
choice, is the real cost of any decision and must be
factored into decision-making.
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12. TC’S CHANGE WHO YOU ARE
“Mastering concepts requires that I connect theory
to basic models and equations and explain why
they work, or why they will not work.” Physics student

13. SOME TEACHERS MIGHT SAY “I DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH TC’S:
I JUST TEACH CONTENT”

14. BUT THRESHOLD CONCEPTS =THE
PASSION OF THE DISCIPLINE!
It's not the idea of harmful agricultural practices that hooks the
future environmentalist, but the hope that his effort will help
revitalize our food supply.
It’s not because she likes solving polynomials that drives a math
expert, but the fact that math explains the
beauty of nature.
For true practitioners these aren't just the
icing on the cake—they are the cake, the
reason they commit their lives to their
disciplines.
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15.
SO HOW DO WE IDENTIFY OUR DISCIPLINE’S
THRESHOLD CONCEPTS?
IT’S A THRESHOLD CONCEPT IF
…it take excessive time and effort to learn.
…it changes students’ way of thinking.
…to you, it’s “obvious.”
(that’s why you haven’t identified it yet)

16. WHY DO TC’S MATTER?
BECAUSE LEARNING IS NOT…
Stuffing our students heads with rules, and
information. They forget it right after the test.
They must engage with the topic in depth,
discover the threshold
concepts, and embed their
new understanding in their
minds.

17. LEARNING IS
The process of creating and revising mental
schemas as we interact with the world and see
how it works.
We refine our schemas when we have new
experiences of reality that
reveal anomalies in our
existing schemas. TCs
are crucial.

18. STUDENTS HAVE TO CONSTRUCT THEIR
OWN SCHEMAS
“What we see changes what we know. What we
know changes what we see. “ Jean Piaget
“Children have real understanding only of that
which they invent themselves, ad each time we try to
teach them something too
quickly, we keep them from
reinventing it themselves.”
Jean Piaget

19. WE SHOULDN’T TEACH CONTENT—WE
SHOULD LET THEM LEARN IT!
We must engineer experiences
so that students process information
and then invent and revise their mental
schemas.
Key schemas =
Threshold
Concepts

20. COURSE DESIGN IMPLICATIONS
• Identify 5-7 main TCs (harder than it sounds!)
• What were your epiphanies? These might be Threshold
Concepts
• TCs aren’t facts, but value statements; statements of truth.
• They are unique to your discipline.
• It helps to get an outsider’s view
• THEN, Organize your course
• around your TCs

21. TEACHING IMPLICATIONS
Don’t Do
Repeat Explanations Make students confront
misconceptions
Don’t Do
Oversimplify Assess their thinking process

22. 5 IMAGES BORROWED FROM
Ray Land—The inventor of the concept of Threshold
Concepts
Land, R. (2010) Threshold concepts and troublesome
knowledge: A Transformative Approach to Learning.
Keynote Address at the New Zealand Association of
Bridging Educators 9th National Conference, 29
September to 1 October 2010, Wellington, New
Zealand:
http://www.utdc.vuw.ac.nz.events/RayLand/
201009RayLandSlides.ppt

23. ABOUT ME
CAROLE HAMILTON
• I’m a retired English teacher who has researched extensively in
how students learn and how best to teach to how they learn. I
hope you enjoy my presentations. Look for my new book on
how new insights from cognitive science can improve how we
teach.
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