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DEVELOPING TEACHING EFFICIENCIES TEACHING TIPS Using Threshold Concepts to Bring Students to the Next Level of Learning I've been teaching doctoral students for more than twenty years, and have worked at universities in the UK, USA, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. I have chaired more than a hundred dissertations from students whose ability has ranged from Ivy League to Open Access students. For me, regardless of the ability of the student, the chair-student relationship is critical because, although there are fundamental skills that have to be mastered, how these skills are mentored has to be managed individually. This may sound like a truism since each relationship is individual. What I am trying to suggest is that information and feedback has to be given in a way that is most useful to your student. To that end, I'd like to talk a little about the research on Threshold Concepts. Meyer and Land (2005) suggested that when students learn, they often have to overcome critical points of understanding to move their learning forward. For example, if you are studying evolutionary psychology, the threshold concept might be Darwin's theory of evolution, e.g. survival of the fittest (Darwin, 1865), and then the later, more advanced version put forward by Hamilton (1964a, 1964b). Hamilton suggested that all organisms operate to best promote their genes (called the theory of inclusive fitness). When a ground squirrel thumps on the top of his burrow to warn the colony that a predator is approaching, why should the squirrel put itself in so much personal danger? If the survival of the fittest explanation applies, then the squirrel should just run and hide. However, when you understand that the colony is made up of the kin (e.g. sons and daughters of the squirrel), then you understand why the theory of inclusive fitness is appropriate – the squirrel is protecting its genes because its genes are in its kin. So the theory of inclusive fitness is a threshold concept. What I try to do is work out what the threshold concepts are for my students, and really focus in on those for each student. This might be in the form of sending examples to the student or specific research method readings from selected texts. For example, when I teach research methods, some students really struggle to understand the difference between qualitative and quantitative research, some struggle with the concept of operationalization, and some struggle with differences between correlation and regression. Meyer and Land (2006) talk about a liminal space, and by this they mean a place where students are trying to understand a key issue and can't move forward until they do. Mayer and Land (ibid) explain that this place is where students can spend a lot of time, but that this is normal because crossing these thresholds is key to learning. Richard Remedios, PhD Full-Time Faculty, Department of Psychology