Threshold concepts

Switching gears to a different book that focuses on teaching writing: Naming What We Know; in Chapter 6 Heidi Estrem examines the similarities and differences between threshold concepts and student learning outcomes. To better understand this argument, it is important to note that in the case of this book, threshold concepts are concepts which when grasped result in a change in perspective or new ways of viewing the world for the students. They are not, therefore, learning outcomes, but thresholds or doorways through which one might hope students would pass. It should not be held, however, that all students should pass through the same doorways or that any individual student should pass through a doorway. Estrem advocates moving toward threshold concepts so that “(1)... threshold concepts for writing (and perhaps other kinds of learning) across courses and disciplines may exist; and (2) … when these threshold concepts are made more explicit, students may be more likely to at least recognize, and perhaps even access, aspects of those concepts or the threshold capabilities that lead to them." (pg 93). I wonder how similar threshold concepts might make coherence between foreign language course sequences more coherent.