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Full-Text Articles in Education
Broaching Threshold Concepts: The Trouble With “Skills” Language In Defining Student Learning Goals, Angela J. Zito
Broaching Threshold Concepts: The Trouble With “Skills” Language In Defining Student Learning Goals, Angela J. Zito
To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development
This essay argues that description of student learning goals as various “skills” presents a conceptual threshold lying between and connecting routinely dichotomized characterizations of student learning—most notably, “concrete” versus “abstract.” Qualitative analysis of instructor interviews shows that “skills” language tends to conceal abstract (that is, affective) learning goals behind more concrete (that is, cognitive) ones. Ultimately, this essay proposes that cognitive and affective student learning goals might be more clearly articulated using threshold concepts within and across disciplines, and that the recognition of “skills” as both affective and cognitive is itself a threshold concept in educational development.
The Fearless Teaching Framework: A Model To Synthesize Foundational Education Research For University Instructors, Alice E. Donlan, Sandra M. Loughlin, Virginia L. Byrne
The Fearless Teaching Framework: A Model To Synthesize Foundational Education Research For University Instructors, Alice E. Donlan, Sandra M. Loughlin, Virginia L. Byrne
To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development
There is often a disconnect between the unit of analysis in rigorous education research, and the types of recommendations that instructors find the most useful to improve their teaching. Research often focuses on narrow slices of the student experience, and university instructors often require broad recommendations. We present the Fearless Teaching Framework to address this gap between research and practice. In this framework, we define four pieces of effective teaching: classroom climate, course content, teaching practices, and assessment strategies. We argue that these are appropriate areas of focus for instructor growth, based on their relations to student engagement.