1st Edition

Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge

By Jan Meyer, Ray Land Copyright 2006
240 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

238 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

240 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

It has long been a matter of concern to teachers in higher education why certain students ‘get stuck’ at particular points in the curriculum whilst others grasp concepts with comparative ease. What accounts for this variation in student performance and, more importantly, how can teachers change their teaching and courses to help students overcome such barriers? This book examines the... Read more

Foreword: Dr Liz Beaty, Director of Learning and Teaching, Higher Education

Funding Council for England (HEFCE)

   

Page

Ray Land and Jan Meyer

Introduction

1

Section I:

Towards a Theoretical Framework

 

Chapter 1

Jan Meyer and Ray Land

Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: an introduction

 

Chapter 2

Jan Meyer and Ray Land

Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: issues of liminality

 

Chapter 3

David Perkins

Constructivism and troublesome knowledge

 

Chapter 4

Anastasia Efklides

Metacognition, affect and conceptual difficulty

 

Chapter 5

Peter Davies

Threshold concepts: how can we recognise them?

 

Section II:

 

Threshold Concepts in Practice

 

Chapter 6

Charlotte Taylor

Threshold concepts in Biology – do they fit the definition?

 

Chapter 7

Martin Shanahan and

Jan Meyer

The troublesome nature of a threshold concept in Economics

 

Chapter 8

Nicola Reimann and

Ian Jackson

Threshold concepts in Economics - a case study

 

Chapter 9

Glynis Cousin

Threshold concepts, troublesome knowledge and emotional capital: an exploration into learning about others

 

Chapter 10

Ursula Lucas and

Rosina Mladenovic

Threshold concepts in Introductory Accounting

 

Chapter 11

Maggi Savin-Baden

Disjunction as a form of troublesome knowledge in problem-based learning

 

Chapter 12

Jenny Booth

On the mastery of philosophical concepts: Socratic discourse and the unexpected ‘affect’

 

Chapter 13

Simon Bishop

Using analogy in science teaching as a bridge to students’ understanding of complex issues

 

Conclusion

   

Chapter 14

Ray Land, Glynis Cousin, Jan Meyer and Peter Davies

Implications of threshold concepts for curriculum design and evaluation

 

Biography

Jan Meyer is Professor of Education and foundation Director of the Centre for Learning, Teaching, and Research in Higher Education, University of Durham.

Ray Land is Professor of Higher Education Development and Director, Centre for Higher Education Development, Coventry University. Education in Cyberspace , He has written widely on higher education, and his books include Education and Cyberspace (RoutledgeFalmer, 2004) and Educational Development: Discourse, Identity and Practice (SRHE/McGraw-Hill Open University Press, 2004).