Bottlenecks, Thresholds, and Transformers: New Ways to Look at Old Content Jane S. Halonen University of West Florida.

Bottlenecks, Thresholds, and

Transformers: New Ways to Look

at Old Content

Jane S. HalonenUniversity of West Florida

Wellsprings of this Approach

Ray Land, originator of “threshold concepts”

Ray Land

Wellsprings of this Approach

Ray Land, originator of “threshold concepts”

Rob McEntarffer, proposer of single index assessment items at last year’s BEST PRACTICE CONFERENCE

Rob McEntarffer

Wellsprings of this Approach

Ray Land, originator of “threshold concepts”

Rob McEntarffer, proposer of single index assessment items at last year’s BEST PRACTICE CONFERENCE

J. William Hepler, my introductory teacher at Butler University (Go, Bulldogs!) A reasonable facsimile

Proceed from these assumptions..

Psychology is not just built from concepts; it has now run amok.

Not all psychology concepts are Easy to learn Easy to teach Equally valuable

We must make judicious selections.

What is a bottleneck concept?

Concepts that produce a reliable struggle to understand. [Sometimes they are also threshold concepts.]

Bottleneck Exemplar

What student in his or her right mind would understand functionalism vs. structuralism on first exposure ?

What is a threshold concept?

Threshold concepts have extra impact in imparting the nature of the DISCIPLINE.

Students stand on one side; teachers, through skilled teaching, stand on the other and pull students across to the enlightened side.

Threshold Exemplar

“the power of controlled comparison”

Students don’t easily get correlational vs. experimental design

Consequently, isolated terms are difficult to understand and apply

What’s wrong with this picture?

What is a transformative concept?

A concept that fundamentally changes who you are and how you think. The impact is PERSONAL.

Some bottleneck and threshold concepts can become transformers.

Transformers

Involve an “a ha” moment when your new understanding had profound effects on you

May or may not be in the classroom

May or may not have been instrumental in declaring a major

Transformer Exemplar

Defense Mechanisms Everybody does it It distorts the truth It makes your anxiety

go away People can’t realize

they are doing it or it doesn’t work

…I do it, too!

What are the conceptsin introductory psychologywith the highest impact?

Let the data sharing begin!

Take a moment and see if you can identify a psychology concept that was “high impact” for you when you were starting out and explain it to your neighbor.

Propose the category into which you think it fits best: Bottleneck Threshold Transformer

Pilot Study

I asked my honors students to identify the most transformative concepts

Taint of pandering Confusion between

content area and concept

2nd Attempt:Dr. Awesome’s Intro Class

Inquired about hard CONTENT/chapter area followed by CONCEPT

Inquired about easy CONTENT/chapter area followed by CONCEPT

Followed up by asking about Transformative CONCEPT

Executed through extra credit opportunity at the end of exam while everything is FRESH

Dr. Tom Westcott

What content is hard?

“Stuff on the brain” = 23 %

Emotions = 10% Cognition = 7% Abnormal = 5% Language = 4%

Memorable comments

“Remembering the names of the ‘state the obvious’ theorists”

“Too many theories” “The lecture” “Theories I don’t agree

with” “I’m very thickheaded

and that was too much information to learn”

Hardest Concept

Hormone release and function

Sleep phases Neurotransmitters Self-awareness Schachter Decay theory Evolutionary theory Arousal Erickson’s theory Negative

reinforcement

Piaget’s theories (3) Peripheral nervous

system Language acquisition Personality disorders

(2) IQ Yerkes Dodson Emotional intelligence Phoneme Creativity Darwin

Hardest Concept

US = UR, CS = CR “Endrocrent” system Learning theories Latent and manifest

content Probability Negative/positive

correlation Dream cycles Natural and artificial

concepts Push pull theory Neurological reaction

stimulus Experimental theories

And my personal favorite Internal “focus” on

control

What about transformation?

Of 216 responses 64 (30%) said none occurred 24 (11%) discussed an idea too vaguely to

count 128 (59%) offered at least one specific

concept 136 concepts were identified in total

Why no transformation?

“I’ve had the class before.”

“Interesting stuff but just another gen ed class.”

“Learned a lot but not life changing.”

“Not really transformation, but my thought processes on human behavior have been altered.”

“Psych is interesting but all just based on common sense.”

“..but I’m keeping the book”

Attitude and Self-Control (25)

Attitude is key to 90% of situations

You can choose to be mad

I’m trying to be more patient and think things through

After a bad shot, I don’t dwell on it. I just move on.

There isn’t any such thing as a bad day

You decide to let things bother you

Memory & Study Strategies (29)

How to remember 100 things

How to remember multiple things clearly

Best to study in 20 minute blocks for optimal retention

“Awesome”

Life Skills (13)

Ask open ended questions when people are upset

How to talk to others

How to look at people and the world

Reading people

I am more observant

I better understand people. In fact, I changed my major because of this course.

Sleep & Dreaming (11)

1/3 of our lives sleeping!

I focus more on dreams than before

Titling your dreams will help you remember them

Motivation & Emotion (11)

Different reasons behind peoples’ actions

How a person deals with stress and its effects on the body

Stress because I’m a very busy, stressful person

Sensation & Perception (11)

Made me want to go to medical school to study more about the human body

Everything we see around us is actually a figment of imagination

How the brain works and can be tricked

I had no idea images were upside down and our brain fixes them to be upright

Pathology (9)

Mental disorders opened my eyes to suffering and we don’t take the time to care

Throughout the course I was getting free counseling to deal with my wife and kids just be attending the class

I have cancer. Anxiety and depression made me realize a lot of people suffer

Better able to understand my friend’s schizophrenia

Deception (6)

I can tell if someone is being deceitful or not

Learning how to predict deception in others

Learning (5)

You can learn new things or ideas as you get older in life

The marshmallow effect

The idea that mental “fortacies” can contribute to learning barriers

I am not sure what it is called but the story where the rat wants food and he has the shocker in front of him and he turns around multiple times. I can relate this to peoples’ relationships around me.

Others

Social (5): territorial space, persuasion, love and distance

Personality (4)

Child behavior (3)

Creativity (1)

Research (1): how correlations work and what it really means to have a relationship between two things

What’s Wrong with This Picture?

Context didn’t produce solid reflection.

“Concepts” is an expert, not a novice, organizer.

Is it expecting to much for an introductory psychology course to be transformative? Hit rate for transformation is likely to improve

with declaration of major. Can this generation own transformation or is

it just not “cool?”

Challenge: Create the High Impact Roster

What is your best “bottleneck?” Operational definition:

A concept that is really difficult to teach/understand.

What is your best “threshold?” Operational definition:

A concept that most effectively introduces the nature of psychology.

What is your best “transformer?” A concept that produces the strongest

personal impact.

Bottleneck Roster

Action potential Heritability Split brain Culture Top-down bottom-up Natural

selection/evolution

Critical periods Classical conditioning Negative

reinforcement Color dynamics Emotion

Threshold Roster

Correlation vs. causation

Neurotransmitter influence

Research methods as a whole

Personality theory

Not all psychologists are clinicians

Basic vs. applied research

Multicausality

Transformer Roster

Alternative personality theory (different set of eyes)

Unreliability of personality tests

Brain change Psychology = biology Compassion and

reduced stigma

Bystander effect Attraction/liking Power of the situation Disorders Cognitive dissonance Groupthink/critical

thinking Classical conditioning

What does it all mean?

What would happen if we organize what we do to maximize high impact learning in introductory psychology?

What teaching strategies would follow those decisions?

What assessment ideas would work?

What is your take-away?

Does this framework influence how you think about

Content scope?Content depth? Students?

Questions/Comments

jhalonen@uwf.edu

Thanks for having me!