A Reflection On Threshold Concepts

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A Reflection On Threshold Concepts

Threshold concepts are ideas that when once understood, completely transform how one thinks about a topic (Cousin 6). These concepts are characterized by being transformative, irreversible, troublesome, conceptually bound, integrative, liminal, reconstitutive, and discursive (Cousin 7). These concepts include things like inertia, where a student learns that objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. Such concepts completely change the student’s thinking and cannot be easily changed for the student to believe otherwise. Interacting with these concepts has significantly impacted multiple aspects of my education.

My experience with threshold concepts informed my reading and analysis since I focused on first comprehending the threshold concept as a means to open up a new portal of thinking and perceiving the knowledge presented to me. With such a methodology, I understood concepts more conceptually and integratively and subsequently impacted my writing by following a methodology that begins with the main concept then explores new perspectives and makes discursive and integrative conclusions.

The threshold concept I connected with the most was deconstruction, which is the analysis of text and speech to pinpoint and critique the implied message, construction, and positioning of the author’s argument as compared to critiquing the message itself. This concept was particularly intriguing for me because it seemed to me that deconstruction was attempting to step into the author’s mind and understand their point of view and how they developed the implicit messages in their discourse or text. I felt like this is one of the ways of gaining deeper knowledge about a given topic including literature. For instance, by deconstructing literal texts, we can understand the implicit messages in books such as Sense and Sensibility and understand how the author constructed and positioned her argument rather than simply critiquing her message. This provides a deeper understanding of other issues such as the influence of society on the author’s argument, and how this influenced the construction, structuring, and positioning of her argument. While I have significantly connected with the deconstruction threshold concepts, I am still working to understand the opportunity cost threshold concepts in economics. As I work to understand and apply opportunity cost, I will keep the ideas about deconstruction in future writing, particularly in papers involving implicit messages by authors.

Drafting major assignments for this unit was an interesting task but not easy. I ensured that topic selection was as specific as possible to ensure that I was able to focus on a specific message throughout the assignment. The research was also made easier when the topic was narrowed down because I could ask the librarian for assistance on a specific query, making the sources provided significantly relevant to the research. However, some sources were not very helpful. Some provided very shallow information on the topic, while others were not credible enough to be included. I ensured that only scholarly articles were used, which assisted in practicing proper MLA citation through in-text citations and the works cited page.

The research was a very educational activity that impacted my learning. I learned about conciseness when it comes to the research topic and its significance to the research process. However, if I could redo the process again, I would apply the concept of threshold concepts in the research process, such that I would begin with understanding a foundational concept, then gradually open up new portals of thinking. The project related to other concepts such that I began to perceive foundational concepts I had learned before more deeply and connect them to other concepts. My view of reading and writing has changed through the impact of threshold concepts and their main ideologies. I now approach both reading and writing from this perspective, and use the threshold concepts to make learning more effective and integrative.

Works Cited

Cousin, Glynis. “An introduction to threshold concepts.” Planet 17.1 (2006): 4-5.

Salwén, Håkan. “Threshold concepts, obstacles, or scientific dead-ends?.” Teaching in higher education (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1632828