Threshold concepts inform the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education.
The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (2015) is organized into six frames, each consisting of:
These work together to provide “conceptual understandings that organize many other concepts and ideas about information, research, and scholarship into a coherent whole.” The Framework is called a framework intentionally because it is based on a cluster of interconnected core concepts, with flexible options for implementation, rather than on a set of standards or learning outcomes, or any prescriptive enumeration of skills.
Learning thresholds are like opening a portal to transformed ways of thinking, understanding, interpreting, or viewing something. Passing through these thresholds (portals) is required for learning to progress.
a) Transformative - once understood, the impact on student learning and behavior is a shift in the perception of a subject.
b) Irreversible - the change of perspective is unlikely to be forgotten.
c) Integrative - exposes the interrelatedness of something and allows the learner to make connections
d) Bounded - any conceptual space will have terminal frontiers, bordering with thresholds into new conceptual areas. Disciplinary property in a curriculum may carry an inherent tendency to invite congealed understandings. This implies a curriculum design perspective that aims for a research-minded approach to mastery in which there is always space for questioning the concept itself.
e) Troublesome - information may seem counter-intuitive, unfamiliar, or seemingly incoherent to the student.
How do threshold concepts apply to planning for library instruction sessions?
Threshold concepts can be used to define potentially powerful transformative points in the student’s learning experience. They are the ‘jewels in the curriculum’ because they identify key areas that need mastery. These points guide student learning objectives.
It is important to try to hear what the students’ misunderstandings and uncertainties are in order to sympathetically engage with them. Culturally responsive teaching and universal design for learning principles help with this.
Teachers must demonstrate that they can tolerate learner confusion and can ‘hold’ their students through liminal states, so students know that their fears comprehending difficult concepts is acceptable and common among their peers. Active learning techniques help students engage with the content as they work through a learning threshold.
Learning is a recursive process that requires looping back on the learning journey (or excursion) for the concepts to be grasped. Learning is not linear. The ACRL Frame, Information Creation as a Process, refers to this threshold concept as an "iterative" process.
Association of College and Research Libraries, Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Chicago: ALA, 2015. American Library Association.
Cousin, G. (2006). An introduction to threshold concepts. Planet. 17(1), 4-5 (2006). https://doi.org/10.11120/plan.2006.00170004.
Meyer, J., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the Disciplines. ETL Project. http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/docs/ETLreport4.pdf.