Overcoming barriers to student understanding

About this book

Overcoming Barriers to Student Learning explores why certain students "get stuck" at particular points in the curriculum whilst others grasp concepts with comparative ease. It proposes a "threshold concepts" approach to the curriculum, arguing that in certain disciplines there are "conceptual gateways" or "portals" that lead to previously inaccessible, and initially perhaps "troublesome," ways of thinking about something. A new way of understanding, interpreting, or viewing a topic may thus emerge - having a transformative effect on internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. While maintaining that knowledge should indeed be "troubling" in order for it to be transformative, this book provides new perspectives on helping students through such conceptual difficulty in order to enhance learning and teaching environments in higher education, and in other educational sectors. It discusses: Ways of dealing with the kinds of anxiety, self-doubt and frustration that learning can evoke in students; How we might help our students not to avoid the troublesomeness, but to feel more confident in coping with it, resolving it and moving on with confidence; What might account for variation in student performance when dealing with concepts; What teachers might do in relation to the design and teaching of their courses that could help students overcome such barriers to their learning; What makes particular areas of knowledge more troublesome than others. The illustrative case studies presented here will help teachers analyze their own practice. Overcoming Barriers to Student Learning will serve the needs of educational researchers and developers, and academics within various disciplines who wish to learn more about threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge.