Tuesday 27 April 2010

Results from 24 April 2nd Year 1 Study Day evaluation

These results are based on 150 completed questionnaires. I have processed the write-in questions through Wordle, to give some impression of the priorities attached to some of the comments and requests (there is no significance to any of the arrangement other than the relative size of the words).

Monday 26 April 2010

Presentation on Threshold Concepts from Study Day 24 April 2010

Here is an annotated version of the Study Day presentation, without the bells and whistles!

But the video can be seen embedded in here (part of a series of pages on TCs, coming at them from different angles--if you didn't get the idea at the Study Day itself, we hope they will help).

The video of the presentation, including the part after the break, will be around soon--we'll notify you via this blog.

The evaluation report should be available by the end of the week, but no guarantees. Introducing Threshold Concepts


And I'm kicking myself--I refrained from mentioning a very important TC indeed. I didn't put it in the first part because I hoped one of you would come up with it, but no-one did and I forgot. It's the evolution of species by means of natural selection (Darwin 1859, and of course Wallace 1858), the threshold concept which revolutionised and underpins modern biology. And it is still being argued about!

A couple of people asked about the references; the major TC publications are;
  • Meyer J H F and Land R (eds.) (2006) Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge London; Routledge.

  • Land R, Meyer J H F and Smith, J. (eds) (2008) Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines Rotterdam; Sense Publishers
and I also referred to;
  • Hattie, J (2009) Visible Learning; a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement London; Routledge.
The pages on the Doceo site also includes links to further reading beyond the site.

Many thanks to everyone for their contributions to a really good day.