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Western Washington University

Threshold concepts

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Assessment Project Write-Up: Phil 112, Ethical Question Activity, Michelle Saint Jan 2013

Assessment Project Write-Up: Phil 112, Ethical Question Activity, Michelle Saint

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

I regularly teach Phil 112: Introduction to Moral Issues. This is a 100-level, 3 credit hour course that is intended to introduce students to philosophy in general and the study of ethics in particular. One of the most significant goals I have for the course is getting students to understand how to engage in ethical inquiry. I don’t want them to learn just the content of ethical theories that other people have previously developed; I want them to develop the skills that will permit them to engage in ethical inquiry themselves. The most significant threshold concepts covered in this class …


Reinforcement By Error Analysis Of Multiple: Threshold Concepts In Advanced Spanish Composition, Sean Dwyer Jan 2013

Reinforcement By Error Analysis Of Multiple: Threshold Concepts In Advanced Spanish Composition, Sean Dwyer

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

This year, I taught a course in advanced Spanish grammar, Spanish 302. This course provided me with an opportunity to build on a procedure I developed and refined in the Backwards by Design writing instruction workshops in 2012 and 2013 for emphasizing one of the threshold concepts in basic Spanish, noun-adjective agreement. This year’s enhanced procedure, which could not be implemented easily at the 100 level, is proving to serve as a gateway to greater understanding on the part of my students of their individual strengths and weaknesses.


A Process For Engagement With Threshold Concepts In Spanish Composition, Sean Dwyer Jan 2012

A Process For Engagement With Threshold Concepts In Spanish Composition, Sean Dwyer

Backward by Design Mini-Studies

Numerous practices and assignments discussed at the 2012 Backwards by Design Curriculum Workshop appeal to me as sources of creativity in the classroom. Some will suit courses I teach in the future. For this year, I faced an issue: I am working with students whose classroom vocabulary is equivalent to that of a three-year-old, because I am teaching first-year Spanish.

The most applicable idea, one that energized me greatly, was the identification of threshold concepts. Working backward from that identification, I sought ways to implement practices that would, I hoped, bring those concepts permanently into my students’ approach to writing …