Download Troublesome knowledge, thresholds and climate change

Troublesome knowledge,
thresholds and climate change
Brendan Hall
CeAL, University of
Gloucestershire
Royal Geographical Society, London. 29/8/08
The research
• PhD research – Key concepts in teaching
and learning climate change
• Theoretical frameworks – Troublesome
Knowledge and Threshold Concepts
• Interviews with academics involved in
teaching and researching climate change
in Geography departments in England and
Wales
Troublesome Knowledge
• Perkins (1999) identifies several forms of
knowledge, all of which may be potentially
‘troublesome’ in some way for a learner
• Ritual Knowledge – routine/ritual response
• Inert Knowledge – “the mind’s attic”
• Conceptually Difficult & Alien Knowledge –
difficult/complex/counter-intuitive
• Tacit Knowledge – implicit within discipline
Threshold Concepts
“Within certain disciplines there are certain
‘conceptual gateways’ or ‘portals’ that lead
to a previously inaccessible, and initially
perhaps ‘troublesome’, way of thinking
about something” (Meyer and Land 2005)
Students must cross these thresholds in
order to progress within the discipline
Threshold Concepts Characteristics
• Troublesome – conceptually difficult, alien etc.
• Transformative – brings about a significant shift
in the learner’s perception of a subject
• Integrative – reveals the previously hidden
interrelatedness of different concepts
(Carmichael et al. 2007)
• Irreversible – unlikely to be unlearned
• Liminality – a space that must be ‘crossed’ to
occasion shift in identity, likely to be
uncomfortable (Meyer and Land 2005)
The Interviews
• Troublesome knowledge and threshold
concepts have informed research design
• Key questions in this instance:
• When teaching climate change, what do you think
are the key concepts that students should have an
understanding of?
• When teaching climate change, what are the
concepts/ideas that you feel students find
troublesome (struggle with?)
Key Concepts?
• “They should be aware of a range of environmental proxies....and
geochronological techniques. Essentially the what and when of the
science”
• “The history of the discipline”
• “...being highly critical and looking at the balance of evidence”
• “I would be more concerned with climate...the basics of how climate
works”
• “Natural climate variability...the climate is not stable”
• “I try to reinforce the Earth system approach....terrestrial, ocean,
atmosphere are all involved”
• “I’m a pretty big fan of getting the chronology right...that’s probably
because that’s where my expertise is”
• “The palaeoclimate toolbox”
• “I think the very top one for me is certainty, certainty and uncertainty”
Troublesome Knowledge?
• “They [students] have an aversion to anything....that they perceive to
be deeply scientific” (dating techniques, geochronology)
• “Trying to introduce any mathematics generally doesn’t go down too
well”
• “I don’t think many of them grasp that [uncertainty,
criticality/evidence]”
• “The variability of climate, the fact that it was changing without any
anthropogenic influence”
• “To realise that science and what we find in science is changing all
the time”
• “The sheer volume of the material” (literature, debate – size of the
discipline)
• “Some of the geophysical stuff...for example radiocarbon calibration,
you have to know something about geomagnetic fields...it’s not the
sort of stuff they’re expecting as part of a Geography degree”
Towards threshold concepts in
climate change?
• Some concepts are identified as being both ‘key’
and ‘troublesome’
•
•
•
•
Geochronology (the ‘what and when’)
Uncertainty
Variability
Evidence
• Other potential candidates
•
•
•
•
Disciplinary history
Climate
Earth Systems
Palaeoclimate
Where to from here?
• Context is important
• Threshold concepts emerge from
discussions amongst peers within the
discipline
• Your views?
• Any questions?