Threshold Concepts and
their Importance in
Teaching and Learning
Andrew Ashwin
Higher Education Publisher
Cengage Learning EMEA
What is the Issue?
• Some students seem to ‘get it’
• Some students don’t
• Why?
As teachers, what are our conceptions of
learning?
What is your definition of ‘learning’ in Economics?
Approaches to Learning
• Deep Learning – a qualitative
change in understanding reality
• Surface Learning – memorising
in order to re-tell
• Strategic Learning – doing
enough to get the grades
needed to move on
Threshold Concepts
• Act as a portal to transformed
understanding of a subject
• Thinking in the subject – thinking like an
economist
Thinking Like an Economist
• What does the idea of thinking like an
economist mean to you?
• How do you know when students are
thinking like an economist? What does it
look like?
Troublesome Knowledge
Troublesome knowledge – fuzzy
understanding and confusion
“When the price goes up the demand
changes and people buy less. This causes
the demand curve to shift to the left and
leads to a fall in price and the amount
consumers buy.”
“Opportunity cost is the amount of money
that you would have used to buy a product”
Concepts
• Mental images – common features that
facilitate common recognition and
understanding
• Communicating our mental images
Criterial Attributes: characteristics/features
that define a category or concept
Criterial Attributes
Criterial Attributes
Question:
What are the criterial attributes of the
following economic concepts?
• Incentives
• The margin
• Elasticity
• Real and nominal variables
Concept Formation and Concept
Acquisition
Concept acquisition – the presentation of
concepts to learners – leads to
representational learning (surface learning
= troublesome knowledge)
Concept formation – a cognitive process to
assimilate concepts – leads to deep learning
(= threshold concepts)
Core Concepts in Economics
Question:
If you were only allowed to teach FIVE
economics concepts to a Principles of
Economics class, what would they be?
Threshold Concepts
• Transformative
• Irreversible
• Integrative
• Bounded
• Troublesome
What are Threshold Concepts
in Economics?
•
Opportunity cost
•
The margin
•
Incentives
•
Partial equilibrium
•
Comparative advantage
•
The failure of the market to meet social objectives
•
Government role in improving market outcomes
•
Elasticity
•
General equilibrium
•
Efficiency
•
Fluctuations in short term growth and its effect on aggregate demand
•
Long term growth and the supply side
•
Real and nominal values
•
Cumulative causation (e.g. the multiplier).
Implications for Teaching and
Learning
• Starting with what students know – getting
them to discover concepts
• Using appropriate questioning techniques
• The chance for students to apply
knowledge and concepts to new contexts
• Designing assessment to encourage deep
learning
Question
• Write down a definition of ‘value’
• Can we come to an agreement on the
definition?
• Can we agree on some criterial attributes
of the concept of ‘value’?
• Where do we meet ‘value’ in economics?
Assessment
• What assessment techniques do we use
and why?
• Many assessment systems across the
world are based on Bloom’s taxonomy
(1956)
• Are there other assessment systems that
would be more appropriate?
A perfectly competitive market has
a
.
b
.
c
.
d
.
e
.
a) firms that set their own prices.
b) only one seller.
c) at least a few sellers.
d) many buyers and sellers.
e) a few dominant sellers
Developing Understanding
through Cases and
Questions?
• Presenting material chapter-by-chapter
• Presenting material through ‘stories’
Does one help promote thinking like an
economist more than the other?
Using Stories or Real Life
Information
We have issued a call for evidence on wind. That is about cost but
also about community buy-in. We need to understand communities'
genuine desires. We will form our policy in the future on the basis of
that, not on a bourgeois Left article of faith based on some academic
perspective.
If you look at what has been built, what has consent and what is in
the planning system, much of it will not get through and will be
rejected. Even if a minority of what’s in the system is built we are
going to reach our 2020 target. I’m saying enough is enough.
I have asked the planning minister to look again at the relationship
between these turbines and the landscape. It seems extraordinary to
have allowed them to be peppered around the country without due
regard for the interests of the local community or their wishes.
Corrective Wikis
• Corrective wikis – a means of encouraging
students to think and use concepts and
knowledge
• Post a passage online – there are many
mistakes in it.
• Students have to produce a corrected and
accurate version
• Encourages collaborative working
• Can record who have contributed
Questioning Techniques
Types of questioning in the classroom
•
Closed questions
•
Open questions
•
Obvious questions
Why ask a question of a student when you know the
answer?
How does the student feel when they are asked a
question in a class?
How can you alleviate the psychological pressure on
students?
Summary
• Can we empathize with students new to
the subject?
• Are Threshold concepts a useful way of
thinking about teaching and learning in
economics?
• Should we think more about concepts in
our teaching?
• Can we change our teaching and learning
strategies?
Andrew Ashwin
Publisher, Cengage Learning
andrew.ashwin@cengage.com