1. Are there “Threshold Concepts” to develop when learning to become a geography teacher?
David Lambert

2. What are ‘threshold’ concepts?
Transformative
Irreversible
Integrative
Bounded
Troublesome
…. ‘Powerful’?

3. Powerful Knowledge [PDK]
PDK is usually:
abstract and theoretical (conceptual)
part of a system of thought
dynamic, evolving, changing – but reliable
testable and open to challenge
sometimes counter-intuitive
exists outside the direct experience of the teacher and the learner
Discipline based (in domains that are not arbitrary or transient)
PDK enables people (and societies) to think the ‘yet-to-be-thought’
(after Bernstein 2000)

4. Two Issues Threshold Concepts in Geography?
Threshold Concepts in Learning to Teach Geography?

5. Adopting a capabilities approach
What should we teach, and how shall we do this?
Why teach geography?
Who are the children we teach?

6. What role does geography education play …

7. … in preparing children for ‘this day and age’?

8. “This Day And Age” The digital age Information at your fingertips
24/7 news
Computing power: e.g. geospatial technologies
Global threats
Asymmetric warfare and ‘terror’
Climate change
Unregulated capitalism and enormous inequalities
Culture shifts
Three minutes (concentration span)
Selfies and celebrity (‘famous for 15 minutes’)
Social media tyranny

9. To enable them to face the future with confidence, as capable human beings

10. The Key Issue Threshold Concepts in Learning to Teach Geography?
Geography as ‘powerful knowledge’
This may be expressed in different ways. For example, through:
its threshold concepts?
what it means to be able to ‘think geographically’
But what drives this is the ‘why’ question.