Threshold Concepts

Sig­nif­i­cance of Thresh­old Con­cepts in Teach­ing and Learn­ing Ways to Rec­og­nize When Stu­dents are Fac­ing Thresh­old Con­cepts Inter­ven­tions for Thresh­old Con­cepts
Trou­ble­some Knowl­edge Address­ing Trou­ble­some Knowl­edge and Instruc­tion­al Strate­gies

Man walking through door inside a brain mazeLearn­ing a new sub­ject is like explor­ing a maze, stu­dents encounter var­i­ous obsta­cles and chal­lenges that can make their jour­ney both excit­ing or daunt­ing. Now with­in the maze, there are spe­cial keys hid­den along the way. These keys are called thresh­old con­cepts (road­blocks to “aha” moments). They are not just any keys; they are like mag­i­cal keys that have the pow­er to unlock doors to new areas of under­stand­ing, or “aha” moments with­in the maze.

When stu­dents stum­ble on a thresh­old con­cept and use a mag­i­cal key to unlock the door, it’s like find­ing a short­cut or hid­den pas­sage that leads to a whole new lev­el of com­pre­hen­sion, an “aha” moment. Sud­den­ly the maze does not seem as com­plex or intim­i­dat­ing any­more.

A fun­da­men­tal thresh­old con­cept in math is the under­stand­ing of Func­tions and their Graphs. Func­tions are essen­tial math­e­mat­i­cal objects that describe rela­tion­ships between inputs and out­puts. They are foun­da­tion­al to many areas of math­e­mat­ics and have wide rang­ing appli­ca­tions in sci­ence, engi­neer­ing, eco­nom­ics and beyond. Once stu­dents grasp the con­cept of func­tions and their graphs, it unlocks a whole new lev­el of under­stand­ing and pro­fi­cien­cy in var­i­ous math­e­mat­i­cal top­ics.

In the social sci­ences a fun­da­men­tal thresh­old con­cept is per­spec­tive tak­ing or under­stand­ing mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives. The con­cept involves the abil­i­ty to rec­og­nize and appre­ci­ate dif­fer­ent view­points, inter­pre­ta­tions and expe­ri­ences with­in a giv­en social con­text. Once stu­dents grasp the impor­tance of per­spec­tive tak­ing, it trans­forms their under­stand­ing of social phe­nom­e­non and their abil­i­ty to ana­lyze and inter­pret com­plex social dynam­ics. Per­spec­tive tak­ing is a cru­cial thresh­old in the social sci­ences for devel­op­ing crit­i­cal think­ing, cul­tur­al com­pe­tence and mak­ing inter­dis­ci­pli­nary con­nec­tions.

VIDEO: What are Threshold Concepts?

LINK TO VIDEO (4:25 min­utes): From Elon Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­ter for Engaged Learn­ing, numer­ous aca­d­e­mics share a def­i­n­i­tion of thresh­old con­cepts in their own words.

VIDEO: Threshold Concepts 

LINK TO VIDEO (3:48 min­utes): From Ding Learn­ing, a course design agency, this video on thresh­old con­cepts is geared to help learn­ing design­ers nav­i­gate the tricky top­ics in a pro­gram of learn­ing.

VIDEO: Challenges Understanding Threshold Concepts 

LINK TO VIDEO (5:20 min­utes): Dr. Ray Land, Emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of High­er Edu­ca­tion at Durham Uni­ver­si­ty along with oth­er aca­d­e­mics talk about the chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with under­stand­ing thresh­old con­cepts.

VIDEO: Threshold Concepts in Writing

LINK TO VIDEO (5:04 min­utes): From the Cen­ter for Engaged Learn­ing at Elon Uni­ver­si­ty, this video fea­tures var­i­ous aca­d­e­mics talk­ing about thresh­old con­cepts in writ­ing.