presentation for iaa - oxford careers service 24 november 2015
TRANSCRIPT
Anne Adams
Threshold Concepts
Gill Clough, Elizabeth
Hartnet, Natalie
Egglestone, Elizabeth
Fitzgerald, Eileen
Scanlon, Mike Sharples,
Dorothy
Practice based Tricky Topics
Schools in Germany,
Sweden, Portugal,
Spain & UK
BARRIERS to LEARNING
• What are the learning gaps for individual
students?
• Why do students (and their teachers) think
they’ve learnt something BUT they fail in the
exam?
• How do we engage students in difficult
learning when they find it hard to learn a
topic?
BARRIERS to TEACHING
• Experienced teachers know ‘tricky topics’ for
students – but not necessarily ‘WHY’ a TT
• I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY DON’T
UNDERSTAND
• How to motivate and engage + progress
understanding
Image: imgarcade.com
Mimicry
• Mimicry is one possible outcome of liminality
• Example: When asked to put a rule (Thévenin’stheorem) into words, students wrote down an equation rather than a sentence suggests that students lack understanding; only memorization (Harlow, 2011)
• Therefore important to support DEEP learning of a concept
• But not all concepts difficult to learn or teach -which concepts ?
‘SURFACE’ and ‘DEEP’ Learning
• Surface learning:
– skimming, memorising, regurgitating
– SKATING on the surface of understanding
• Deep learning:
– relating new knowledge to existing understanding
– changes how we think
– other knowledge is built on the ‘foundations’ of this
learning
Threshold Concepts
Meyer and Land (2003, 2006)
• Central gatekeeping concept• “something without which the learner cannot progress”
• “akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously
inaccessible way of thinking about something”
• Lightbulb moments• “It represents a transformed way of understanding, or
interpreting”
• Troublesome knowledge• often Counter-intuitive
Features of a Threshold ConceptA threshold concept (TC) is likely to be:
• Transformative– once understood, can cause a shift in the perception of a subject
sometimes it even transform identity
• Irreversible– it is unlikely that a TC is forgotten or unlearned once acquired due to
transformation
• Integrative– a TC can expose “the previously hidden interrelatedness of something”
• Bounded–a TC has borders with other TCs; helps to define disciplinary areas
• Troublesome– may be counterintuitive (common sense understanding vs. expert
understanding)
Tricky Topic
ToolWHAT
– Identify tricky topic (e.g. Moles)
– Break down into stumbling blocks (e.g.Tritation, Particles)
HOW
– Describe students problems (description for intervention)
– Linked to one or many stumbling blocks (links)
WHY
– Problem Distiller supports unpicking ‘why’
– TTT support creating quiz
– TTT quiz visualisation
– Student / Teachers’ gaps
– Intervention testing
Creative Juxtaposed Learning
Comparative,
transformative learning
(scaffolded video making)
Tricky Topic
Tool
Highskillz (Ed Tech
Company)
Developing scalable
tricky topic tool
Evidence Based Policing• Innovative Research evidence
– witness interviewing, community
engagement, cybercrime,
• Practice need interventions
– Practice training needs:
– Types of learning intervention: Informal to formal learning, Games based
– Change management: champions, evidence cafes, technology pathways
(Sgt Met Police)
National Centre for Policing Research and
Professional Development
Other
Applications
Higher Education Sector
• OU is largest academic institution in the UK • >1.8 million students since 1969
• 200,000 current students (Inc. >15,000 overseas)
• regarded as Britain’s major e-learning institution
• In National Student Survey• OU received overall satisfaction rating of 90%
• OU was 1 of only 3 HEIs to consistently score 90% or
above every year since 2007
• REF: 72% OU research rated 4 or 3 star
Higher Education Sector
• 41 year partnership with the BBC
• World leader in developing technology to
increase global access to education with vast
open content portfolio including:• free study units on OpenLearn, which received 5.2
million unique visitors in 2012/13
• materials on iTunes U, which has recorded more than
66 million downloads
We Need
• Face to Face HE Teaching
– Swedish & Spanish University trials [URJC, LNU: computing and
research methods] SUCCESSFUL
– Tutorials & supporting OU learning design
• Input from university with high-quality f2f teaching
expertise
- OXFORD UNIVERSITY
References• Meyer, J. & Land, R. (2003) Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge:
linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines. In Rust, C. (Ed.)
Improving student Learning - Theory and Practice Ten Years on. Oxford, Oxford
Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD), pp.412-424
• Meyer, J. & Land, R. (2006) Overcoming barriers to student understanding:
Threshold concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. In Meyer, J. & Land, R. (Eds.)
Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold concepts and
Toublesome Knowledge. London and New York, Routledge, pp.19-32
• Gentner, D. & Stevens, A. L. (1983) Mental models, Psychology Press.
• Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983) Mental models: Towards a cognitive science of
language, inference, and consciousness, Harvard University Press.
• Eckerdal, A., McCartney, R., Mostrom, J. E., Ratcliffe, M., Sanders, K. & Zander, C.
(2006) Putting Threshold Concepts into Context in Computer Science Education. IN
Taoufik, A. (Ed.) 3 ed., Association for Computing Machinery.
• Rowbottom, D. (2007) Demystifying Threshold Concepts. Journal of Philosophy of
Education, (Vol. 41, 2), pp. 236-270
Anne Adams & Gill Clough
The Open University
Research Associate JuxtaLearn - IET
Thank You
ADDITIONAL
SLIDES
Juxtalearn
Process
SURFACE and DEEP
LEARNING
Deep and Surface
Learning• Surface learning
– Easy to acquire facts
• Deep learning – Reviewing misconceptions
Deep Learning Teaching methods Related JuxtaLearn stages
Bringing out the structure of the subject Stage 1, Identify: Relating tricky topics to stumbling blocks
Concentrating on and ensuring plenty of time for key concepts Stage 2, Demonstrate: Through Flipped learning and students
creating their own conceptual representations
Confronting students' misconceptions. Throughout all stages
Using assessments that require thought, and requires ideas to
be used together.
Stage 3, Interpret: Tricky topic and stumbling block directed testing
Relating new material to what students already know and
understand.
Stage 4, Perform: Subject tricky topics & stumbling block testing
(subject relations) creative film-making (real world understanding)
Engaging students in active learning. Stage 4, Perform & Stage 5, Compose: creative film-making
Allowing students to make mistakes without penalty and
rewarding effort.
Stage 4, Perform & Stage 5, Compose: creative film-making
[adapted from Biggs (1999) & Entwistle (1988) for JxL methods]
TARGETING interventions for ‘tricky topics’
& ‘deep learning’
• Approaches to Learning (deep, surface,
achieving) important
• Standardised questionnaire used across world
– largest cohorts across Australia.
• Surface & Deep motives and strategies
– Motives: approach & motivation of student to learning
– Strategies: ways of dealing with learning
• Achieving (motives and strategies)
– Motives – competitiveness
– Strategies – strategic management of learning ‘getting
equipment ready to learn’
TARGETING interventions for ‘tricky topics’
& ‘deep learning’
• Identifying ‘tricky topics’,
• Support to create quizzes
• Feedback to students AND teachers on ‘gaps’
• Approaches to Study important – quiz
completed
Diagnostic Quiz• Taxonomy and Example Student Problems linked to
Stumbling Blocks scaffold question construction
Selecting a Stumbling Block
displays Example Student
Problem and Taxonomy
choices
Top BUN of the
burger• Support for identifying students problems
Taxonomy tool prompts
teacher to reflect on
underlying cause of
student problem
JxL supports quiz
authoring• Supports constructing ‘tricky’ questions in a quiz
• Identifying surface and deep understanding
Surface Learning
EXAMPLE• Yr 7 Maths –know division, problems beyond
• Create a Juxtaposed story to explain this to other
students trying to do the quiz you just did.
• For ‘division’ for example, with characters to
represent numbers and symbols (divide, equals)
• It must have a beginning a middle and an end.
• “I know division, EASY”
BUT… during JUXTALEARN StoryMaking ……..
Surface Learning
EXAMPLE• They realised …. They didn’t fully understand
• 11 people representing 11
• 4 mushrooms representing 4
• Monster they have to fight by dividing up 4
mushrooms … with 3 people who can’t fight.
• Teacher spotted and did immediate targeted
support, to help them gain ‘deep learning’!
4 11 = 2 remainder 3
LIGHTBULB MOMENT !!!
Surface to Deep
Understanding• Immediate feedback – comfortable in using
methods:
“I could do the bus-stop method but I didn’t like to do
it all the time, but now I’m happy to do it more often.”
“Same for me, I’ve just done it twice in that test when
I used to just do it in my head”
Engagement
• we understand our problems:
“Sir knows the stuff but we know what other kids
don’t understand.”
“Yeh the ‘mushroom maths’ was great it was
something we’d get”
“We get bored of doing test, after test, after test”
FINDINGS: Meat of
assessment• Question difficulty / deep learning
“When we did questions, when we were doing it out
of the book, [...] and I was completely understanding
some of the questions […] but I did a question on the
quiz and I had to, like do it, apply it differently, and
then I got it wrong”. (Chem4)
• Identifying gaps in understanding
“Some questions were very easy but some were very
hard and I had to guess them.” (SRAMath3)
FINDINGS: Value
of Visualised
Feedback• “I think it was useful for a snapshot view of the
group”. (ChemistryTeacher1)
FINDINGS:
Assessment prior
to and after JxL
intervention
Chemistry Group Clipit ID Pre Quiz Post Quiz
Group1 Chem1 5/10 50% 6/10 60%
Chem2 4/10 40% 7/10 70%
Chem6 5/10 50% 5/10 50%
Chem7 7/10 70% 8/10 80%
Group2 Chem5 3/10 30% 7/10 70%
Chem3 5/10 50% 9/10 90%
Chem8 4/10 40% 5/10 50%
Chem4 2/10 20% 3/10 50%
FINDINGS: quiz
visualisation feedback• Applied to on-going teaching practice:
Peer Learning: “It makes me go maybe that
student could teach that student and try and
unpack their learning and then help these ones
out as well. This makes me think the intervention
could be with them.” (ChemistryTeacher1)
Teacher Intervention: ‘But this [gas volume
calculations] has to be a bit more me. I've then
got to go look at it again and go, what is it about
that ... it could be me... possibly re-teaching it
again could be useful. (ChemistryTeacher1)
Hertfordshire school ‘extra
maths intervention’
tricky topic results
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Student1 Student2 Student3 Student4 Student5 Student6 Student7
Surface Motive
Surface Strategy
Deep Motive
Deep Strategy
Achieving Motive
Achieving Strategy
Deep motive /
surface strategy
Deep motive and strategy
Deep and Surface Learning
(initial results)
[adapted from Biggs (1999) & Entwistle (1988) for JxL methods]
Class overview