1177-threshold-concepts-and-transformational-learning

TRANSCENDING DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARIESanymore to program, I know that. The real duty behind software development isn’tcode. Code equals a small percentage. Really: it’s sitting down and really thinkingit out. ... Now, I don’t think about program in terms of lines of code, how manyfunctions. Problems don’t seem as big as they used to, they’re simplified. [Now,]I’d take a project, break it down to its core elements, and really focus on ... [w]hatis the underlying problem, what underlying job needs to get done? Break down theproblem into pieces, each piece has its own duty or task, functionality. Instead ofa big, round ball, [it becomes] things more like blocks.Retrospective indications of defensiveness: anonymous end-of-term course evaluations.In the case study course, retrospective projection onto the teacher andcourse structure of all responsibility for difficulty in class is interpreted as evidenceof defensiveness, for example, this student’s comments:(S_lA1): I think this class was much more difficult than it had to be. ... My mainconcern was trying to interpret what was being asked, instead of learning thematerial. A separate point – we spent 2 periods going over the [KWIC indexprogram] – Why? Why the line by line analysis of the ... program? This has littlevalue – except to confuse and bewilder the class.In-process feedback: indications of anxiety. Almost all feedback data collected atsemester’s end (representing after-the-fact reportage) satisfies exactly one of thedefining conditions delineated in the previous section. However, for most of thegroup project, qualitative data logged in the midst of students’ actual process doesnot satisfy either definition. It does consistently display a heightened level ofaffect, indeed anxiety, even among students whose projects later turned out well.Consider student entries from week 1 of the project:(S_m201): ... It seems to me that we were not getting anywhere very quickly andthis undertaking was larger than I previously had thought. What seems like sucha straightforward assignment has become very complex ...(S_m202): ... I’m a very calm and balanced person, and never really get stressedout about anything homework-wise because of the timeline I usually follow whenI work. This project is already starting to stress me out because of the seeming lackof progress that we’ve gotten through so far. It seemed to me to be a fairlystraightforward assignment at first, especially given the examples of the circlesand the KWIC index, and I had hoped to hammer out a good outline to the[documents] within the first two sessions. We’re nowhere near that yet. ... It feelslike we’re getting nothing done, and right now I don’t necessarily know where towork next on my own.These entries confirm the relevance of Segal’s analysis; students are experiencing(effects of) explicitness: the confusion that follows exposure to – but precedeslearning (or not) of – existentially unfamiliar material. Distinctions that retrospectivelyidentify reflective and defensive responses do not apply. Analyzing inprocessdata to distinguish between the two response types poses much more37