Threshold Concepts in Chemistry

As I continue my literature review of Chemistry and its Threshold Concepts, I am realizing that many presentations have been done on the subject, but few if any scholarly articles and methodical studies have been generated. I have found one PhD thesis in an Irish context which I have yet to read. In my preliminary interview with one of the Chemistry professors at BYU, I realized that to talk about threshold concepts was foreign, but the idea that they were troublesome - and even the identification of a few of them, was innate. Good teachers intuitively pick up on the threshold concepts and some have even generated a way for dealing with them. I believe that understanding why they might be troublesome to the students is the real key to finding better ways of teaching them. I suspect that we think we know what makes certain topics in chemistry troublesome, but we haven't made our assumptions explicit, nor have we empirically tested them through observation and experience. I intend to use Spradley's participant observation approach to document the teaching of introductory topics in chemistry and then to use Perkins' framework of troublesomeness to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching methods, making recommendations for better pedagogical practice. Perhaps what I am doing is really an evaluation, but the outcome of the project will be mainly be a report on what pedagogical practices professors use to address threshold concepts. I do believe that the value of this study will be understanding of how professors think about and teach threshold concepts and how they conceptualize their troublesome nature.

Memory and its relation to agency

After today's class, I asked the question, why did we have to have our memories of the pre-existence blocked in order to have this mortal experience.

I have come to understand that memory is one of the primary mechanisms that establishes the meaningful grounds for our choices. In the pre-existence, our memories were an outgrowth of enculturation in the pre-mortal realm (I do not remember what that was or what it was like...). Those memories and hence, those grounds for making my choices were not really my own, as I lived in the presence of God and my choices were in accordance with His will (thus I was allowed to remain in His presence - as opposed to the adversary and his followers who rebelled). This all related to true agency...

If my memories of my pre-existence had not been veiled, I would have continued to make decisions based on those that god wanted me to make. I have already spent a long time in His presence learning, experiencing, and most importantly, doing those things that He wants me to do (I did them because I love them - I believe). Now that those memories are not available to me, I have created the new grounds for my decisions from the experiences, choices, enculturation, etc. here in mortality. God has not left me alone here, so I am not totally excluded from His influence, but I experience His influence through faith and spiritual phenomenon, more than by direct sensory experience.

Memory preserves my intellectual history and developmental propensities, which in turn affect my choices. Memory is more than just fact recall - it is recall of sensory, emotive, social, spiritual and physical experience. It is immensely important to agency, volition, choice, and meaning...

Explain vs Teach

Is explaining something inherently different than teaching something? I would answer yes.

I believe that explaining is part of teaching, but that teaching is so much more. Explaining deals primarily with the cognitive aspects of the learning experience. What of the social experience, the personal transformational or change experience? There are so many teachers who equate teaching with explaining. If that's all teaching were, we wouldn't need teachers because we have books, the Internet, libraries, museums, etc. But learning is more and we desperately need teachers. We need teachers who thoughtfully push our students to pursue paths of inquiry for themselves. We need teachers who know their students and understand how to help them overcome their learning failures. We need teachers who see their role as a critical factor in the success of the student. We need teachers who are themselves learners and incredibly curious about the world. Teaching is extremely demanding. Teaching is not a secondary profession, it is the profession of professions. Teaching and learning is at the core of every success, innovation, failure, joy, break-through, and progress. Teaching needs to be re-enthroned as a noble profession. Academics and 'research' have killed the spirit of powerful teaching more than they have strengthened it. In the attempt to analyze teaching, teaching has been killed, much like the frogs who are dissected for the purpose of teaching our students about anatomy. For knowing so much about the 'factors' of learning and teaching are we any further along than we were 80 years ago? Not if we equate explaining with teaching...

Profound address by John Welch at BYU Devotional 5-17-2011

Disrupting Class

This looks like a worthy interview:


http://ednak.com/disruptive-innovation-interview.html

I need to listen to it.

Failure Research

I have noticed two things recently:

1. Failure is usually only talked about as an individual experience rather than a group experience. There may be something to failing in groups that can help us understand things more.

2. There are a lot of books about learning from failure, but not necessarily about "how to fail better". The exception is a book I just came across entitled: "Fail Up" by Tavis Smiley (link). this book looks interesting. It appears to be principle-based more so than method- or technique-based. I will have to look into it.

Sal Khan - Khan Academy

The ideas in the video are great, but pay particular attention to his philosophy of education (roles, knowledge, and experience)