Beyond threshold topics to magic?

Penn (of and Teller) makes a great point while illustrating the threshold topics label.

Threshold topics in mathematics

Fascinating Horizon programme on BBC2 last night, in which Marcus du Sautoy tried to introduce Alan Davies to the joys of maths (while interestingly demonstrating that for a professor of maths, he's not that good at mental arithmetic). Of course, threshold concepts or topics were never mentioned, but that was what this was about, as it opened up a host of new perspectives on the world for Davies. The heading link is to the BBC iPlayer; watch it now before it disappears!

Year 1 Study Day 28 March 09

Thanks to everyone who attended and contributed to the second Year 1 Study Day last Saturday. Sharing the campus with another event made it rather crowded, so thanks for your forebearance, and especial appreciation to the catering staff for their sterling efforts to make sure we were all fed and watered.

The plenary session on this occasion was home-grown. It does not look as though we shall be producing the video as we had expected; the strange arrangement of the twin lecture theatres was not conducive to keeping Peter and myself in view! However, here is the presentation, annotated for the benefit of those who weren't there to hear it.

How To Cheat At Teaching

View more presentations from James Atherton.

The introductory paper for the afternoon discussions on Threshold Topics has been added to the Bedspce site here. It fills out some of the ideas illustrated on the slides, with particular reference to the broadening of the notion of threshold "concepts", to "topics", which may be psychomotor skills or knacks, or affective perspectives. They all continue to work in the same way, however, and of course they overlap.

Is this expansion legitimate? Please comment and discuss.