1. Threshold Concepts: A Lens for Uncovering Student Learning "Bottlenecks”
Donna Harp Ziegenfuss, Ed.D.
Associate Librarian, Assistant Head of Scholarship & Education Services

2. In This Session You Will:
Objectives
In This Session You Will:
Engage in discussion about threshold concepts and how students learn
Participate in an activity to help you develop strategies for helping students get unstuck, and
Take away a toolbox of resources and references to help you deal with student learning bottlenecks in the future

3. Reflect on your own disciplinary learning experiences as a teacher and/or learner.
Think about a key concept or theory in your discipline that either you or your students have struggled with.
Jot down this “bottleneck” concept or theory and also anything you remember about how you learned it, or how you helped your students learn it.

4. Student Learning Approaches Can Depend On:
Academic Engagement
Social Engagement
Intellectual Engagement
Course/curriculum design and structure
The learning environment and how learning is assessed (surface learning, deep learning, strategic learning)
Integration of high impact practices (AACU)
Active learning activities
Time management skills
Teacher presence
A sense of social belonging
Voluntary participatory engagement
Individual differences
Relationships both in and out of the classroom
Expertise level (novice, expert)
Cognitive investment in learning
Developing good learning habits
Learning confidence
Disciplinary belonging
Motivation and ownership for own learning

5. Student Perceptions

6. Intellectual Engagement
So where do Threshold Concepts fit in to all of this?
Academic Engagement
Social Engagement
Intellectual Engagement
Course/curriculum design and structure
The learning environment and how learning is assessed (surface learning, deep learning, strategic learning)
Teacher presence
A sense of social belonging
Relationships both in and out of the classroom
Expertise level (novice, expert)
Learning confidence
Disciplinary belonging
Motivation and ownership for own learning

7. What are Threshold Concepts?
Visual Literacy – “ability to recognize and understand ideas conveyed through visible actions or images, as well as to be able to convey ideas or messages through imagery.”
Aanstoos, J. (2003). Visual Literacy: An Overview. Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop, Proceedings. 32nd.

8. Definitions
Technology Literacy – “ability to responsibly use appropriate technology to communicate, solve problems, and access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information to improve learning in all subject areas and to acquire lifelong knowledge and skills in the 21st century.”
As I mentioned, a Task Force was created to think about these literacies and it was named the VITL Task Force. The Marriott Library will be bringing that group back together to move this initiative to the next level. Recent discussions regarding the reform of General Education requirements has highlighted 21st Century Literacies as an important aspect of future requirements and many faculty are beginning to develop hybrid courses. Visual, Information and Technology literacies are pivotal skills for both students as they graduate and for course development as faculty consider harnessing the power of technology to teach students. Donna will now describe upcoming plans for bringing these efforts to the next level.
Association of College and Research Libraries. (2000). Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Educationhttp://

9. Kolb’s Model of Experiential Learning (1975)

10. What is a Community of Practice?
“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a passion for something that they know how to do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better.”

11. Why Community of Practice Framework?

12. Exchanges
Productive Inquiries
Building Shared Understanding
Producing Assets
Creating Standards
Formal Access to Knowledge
Visits

13. Importance of combining synchronous and asynchronous
Providing individual and group activities, events, and development
Inclusive of variety of stakeholders
Working toward the good of the group
Developing a collection of resources, expertise, shared knowledge that benefits all

14. Community activities oriented to …
… meetings
… open-ended conversation
… projects
… content publishing
Community activities oriented to …
… access to
expertise
… individual
participation
… relationships
In our research of CoPs we noticed 9 general patterns of activities that characterized a community’s orientation. Most had a mix, but some were more prominent in every case.
Image: Wenger, White and Smith, 2007
… community
cultivation
… context
Base material from: Digital Habitats: Stewarding technology for communities
© 2009 Wenger, White, and Smith

15. References
Aanstoos, J. (2003). Visual Literacy: An Overview. Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop, Proceedings. 32nd.
American Library Association. (1989). Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. Final Report. Chicago: American Library Association.
Kolb. D. A. & Fry, R. (1975) Toward an applied theory of experiential learning, In C. Cooper (ed.) Theories of Group Process, London: John Wiley.
Wenger, E. White, N. & Smith, J. (2009). Digital habitats: Stewarding technology for communities
- resources online