Transactional Curriculum Research Articles

Unlocking Engineering Threshold Concepts Through Stakeholder Engagement

A threshold concept is a core idea that is conceptually challenging for students, but once grasped, has the potential to radically transforms students’ perception of the subject. Given threshold concept’s central role to student learning, it is key that they are identified and constructively aligned within the engineering curricula. In this paper, we propose an approach to facilitate the identification of threshold concepts in undergraduate engineering courses. The approach is based on the framework of transactional curriculum inquiry where educators work with a group of stakeholders (students, curriculum designers, industry practitioners) to identify threshold concepts. The process is facilitated by a participatory simulation developed using agent-based modeling. We perform two experiments in a senior automation and controls course to identify threshold concepts. Our results show that this approach can be used to identify threshold concepts and that these concepts do have a significant link to student success in the course’s subject area.

Mapping the landscape of an ICE community of learnership

ABSTRACT Drawing upon the foundational principles of Imagination Creativity Education (ICE), our article examines the relational dimension in the context of classroom environments, as observed within the Canadian schooling system. We explore the landscape of a community of learnership – the lived and living practices of both students and teacher in the communal space in between, a space characterized as the transactional curriculum. We argue that teachers play a vital role in cultivating intentional relationships with students, one whose pedagogical responsibility focuses on establishing relationships, belonging, and dialogue; viewing students holistically for who they are and who they have the potential of becoming. Teachers who design such communities of learnership subscribe to pedagogical praxis, attending to their students’ lived curricula in which deep, engaged, and innovative learning is enacted. In this article, we outline the principles of ICE, through which a community of learnership can be forged. Grounded in Freire’s (1997) concept of gnoseologica of education, we expand on dialogic relationships that value curiosity, imagination, creativity, and innovation. We draw on one author’s Grade 8 1 classroom inquiry to describe the lived experiences of an ICE community of learnership.

Exploring threshold concepts in population health.

Doctors are increasingly expected to improve the health and well-being of populations, as well as to care for individuals. However, despite extensive efforts to integrate population health into undergraduate programmes, engaging students in such learning is notoriously challenging. Threshold concepts are transformative, integrative, irreversible and fundamental to understanding a discipline. Grasping such concepts requires learners to cross a liminal space, which often involves struggle. We employed a form of transactional curriculum enquiry, involving qualitative and quantitative methods, with experienced population health medical educators to identify and explore threshold and troublesome concepts in population health. Attributing causality, inequalities in health and doctors' responsibility for populations not just individuals were the concepts most participants thought were threshold. The value of qualitative research, health as politically and socially determined and not taking evidence at face value were the concepts ranked as most troublesome for learners. Participants found the notions of threshold and troublesome concepts helpful and empowering. They described ways these new ideas would influence how they taught population health. Transactional curriculum enquiry can offer insights into which population health concepts may be threshold and troublesome. The number of such concepts identified in this study may help explain why students often struggle to engage in population health learning. Understanding which concepts are threshold and particularly which are troublesome can help teachers to better support learners and can also inform curriculum design. If our students are to … take responsibility for populations as well as individuals … it is vital that they cross these fundamental thresholds in learning.

Threshold Concepts in Radiation Physics Underpinning Professional Practice in Radiation Therapy

This article identifies potential threshold concepts in radiation physics, and explains their relationship to professional practice in radiation therapy (that is,. the practice of radiation treatment and care of cancer patients). Concepts such as how the radiation beam spreads out (beam divergence), and how the distance from the ionising source affects the beam (inverse-square law), can be challenging for students entering higher education and experiencing their first clinical placements. Through observations of radiation therapy students in practice, mastery of these (and other concepts) appears essential for them to progress in their professional practice learning. The study used ‘transactional curriculum inquiry’ ( Cousin 2009 ) in order to understand why particular concepts might be troublesome to students, and how mastery of these concepts could potentially lead to safe and accurate practice. While the study was conducted in a particular Bachelor of Science in Radiation Therapy programme, it has implications for how academic and clinical educators in other contexts might facilitate students’ acquisition of the threshold concepts that underpin professional practice. The findings suggest that the typical progression in professional education that assumes the application of theoretical concepts to practice, might not be the best way to acquire the threshold concepts that lead to transformed practice.

Towards Adoption of Constructivist Instructional Approach in Learning Biology in Secondary School Students in Kenya: Addressing Learner Attitude

Learning Biology helps learners to acquire requisite knowledge in understanding life processes for positive coexistence. In instances where learners appreciate the position of biology in life, they develop positive attitude and this is reflected in their performance. However, in Kenya, most students have continued to register poor performance in biology in national examinations and this has been attributed to negative attitude towards the sciences by most learners. To address this, changes in the educational curricula and teaching methods from the transmission curriculum to a transactional curriculum has been suggested. The changes imply adjustments in the instructional process to include learner centred activities. On the other hand, studies have shown that the attitude of learners towards changes influence the adoptability and workability of the introduced change. This study investigated attitude of learners towards the constructivist instructional approach. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey technique. Data was obtained from four boys’, four girls’, and four mixed secondary schools with a total of 477 students and were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicated that learners have positive attitude towards the constructivist instructional approach. Boys obtained a scores of (M=58.30; SD=9.15, N=150) while girls had a score of (M=53.14; SD=8.24, N=146). Based on this finding, it is recommended that instructors adopt the constructivist approach in learning so as to boost the attitude of students towards learning biology. It would also be appropriate for further investigations to be conducted in other fields of science such as chemistry and Physics so as to find out if the constructivist approach would also boost the attitude of students in such subjects. Finally, policy makers in the field of education in Kenya (The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology through the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD)) should come up with policies to ensure appropriate learning approaches which foster positive attitude towards learning.

INNOVATIVE CONSTRUCTIVISTIC APPROACH OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

In the present scenario educational curriculum and instructional methods are changing to the challenging needs of the learners. The most important component of the current redevelopment of all subjects’ area curricula is the change in focus of instruction from the transmission curriculum to a transactional curriculum. National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) recommends that curriculum should help learners to become constructors of knowledge and emphasizes the active role of teachers in relation to the process of knowledge construction. This paper highlights that the Constructivist approach of teaching and learning fosters critical thinking, interactive and reflective attitude, collaborative and inquiry based knowledge among the learners. In the constructivist approach, learners construct their own knowledge by testing ideas and approaches based on their prior knowledge and experience, applying them to new situations and integrating new knowledge gained with preexisting intellectual constructs. It frees teachers to make decisions that enhance and enrich learners' development in all areas.

Promise and challenge of identifying threshold concepts: a cautionary account of using transactional curriculum inquiry

The original work on threshold concepts arose from a project designed to improve students’ learning experiences by taking seriously the features of disciplinary knowledge as its starting point. The conceptual and empirical work on threshold concepts has since developed and matured. While many disciplines have engaged enthusiastically with the identification of threshold concepts, healthcare has not been well represented. Drawing on Cousin’s (2007, 2009) notion of transactional curriculum inquiry, the study explores the identification of threshold concepts in a physiotherapy subject, with a sample of physiotherapy clinical educators, using nominal group technique (NGT). While the article presents a set of concepts from the pilot study, this is not its key contribution. Instead, three novel insights are offered for future threshold concepts research. First, there is a need to extend the stakeholders involved in curriculum reform and renewal beyond the university (particularly, for professions). Second, there must be ongoing opportunities for these external stakeholders to engage with and reflect on the distinct features of threshold concepts if the context and authenticity of practice is to be taken seriously for enhancing student learning. Third, the problem of identification is beset with conceptual challenges that remain unresolved for researchers.

Learning in the liminal space: a semiotic approach to threshold concepts

The threshold concepts approach to student learning and curriculum design now informs an empirical research base comprising over 170 disciplinary and professional contexts. It draws extensively on the notion of troublesomeness in a ‘liminal’ space of learning. The latter is a transformative state in the process of learning in which there is a reformulation of the learner’s meaning frame and an accompanying shift in the learner’s ontology or subjectivity. Within the extensive literature on threshold concepts, however, the notion of liminal space has remained relatively ill-defined. This paper explores this spatial metaphor to help clarify the difficulties that some teachers observe in the classroom in regard to their students’ understanding. It employs a novel and distinctive approach drawn from semiotic theory to to provide some explanatory insight into learning within the liminal space and render it more open to analysis. The paper develops its argument through four distinct phases. Firstly it explores the spatial metaphor of liminality to gain further purchase on the nature of this transformative space. The second section introduces semiotic theory and indicates how this will be used through a series of graphical and visual devices to render the liminal space more open to analysis. The third section then employs semiotic analysis to nine dimensions of pedagogical content knowledge to gain further insight into what may characterise student conceptual difficulty within the liminal state. The fourth and concluding section emphasises the role of context in conceptual discrimination before advocating a transactional curriculum inquiry approach to future research in this field.

The identification of threshold concepts: a review of theoretical complexities and methodological challenges

While the study of threshold concepts is a growing area of research, their identification has not proven to be an easy process. However, identification matters because of the potential impact of threshold concepts on the learning experiences of students. A dialogue amongst lecturers and/or students is common to the literature on identification of threshold concepts. This dialogue, with the inclusion of educational developers, has been called ‘transactional curriculum inquiry’ (Cousin in Researching learning in higher education, Routledge, New York, 2009). Diverse methods across a variety of disciplines have explored the identification of threshold concepts, including semi-structured interviews, analysis of exam responses and observation of classroom behaviour. A selection of these methods and disciplines is discussed in order to highlight two main challenges inherent in the identification process: first, the involvement of the wider professional and/or public community, and second, a lack of agreement amongst research participants about the threshold concepts within disciplines. This paper proposes that the transactional curriculum inquiry process should be extended to involve parties beyond the educational realm (e.g. the professional community) and that the use of consensus methodology offers the potential to facilitate agreement across the transactional process.

My Fantasy Curriculum and Other Almost Random Points

This article contains the opening remarks of Professor Tina Stark at Emory Law's Conference on Teaching Drafting and Transactional Skills: The Basics and Beyond. In her remarks, she describes a fantasy transactional curriculum that would cover both doctrinal material and skills. The curriculum would be integrated with each succeeding course building on the ones before it. The curriculum would begin in the first year with an enriched contracts course. Among other things, the course would be taught in the context of a transaction that students would see develop over the course of the semester. In the second year, students would take two business courses, addressing many students' virtual total lack of knowledge about the business world. The first would be a revamped, three-credit accounting course that would focus on the accounting concepts and principles and the context in which lawyers use them in practice. The second course would teach students the basics about business and the business world. The more traditional skills courses would also begin in the second year when students would be required to take contract drafting and a deal skills course. The latter course would focus on skills unique to transactional practice. The curriculum would conclude in the third year with a wide variety of capstone simulation courses, each course dealing with a different transaction.

Pedagogical love in the transactional curriculum

The original meaning of pedagogy is grounded in the relational and intentional responsibility of adult to child. The vulnerability of the child calls forth a loving attitude from the adult, as pedagogue, that is directed toward the physical security and the social, emotional, and educational well‐being of the child as student. The lived experiences of five teachers and their students presented in this paper demonstrate that pedagogical love as a favourable influence, or auspice of heart in teaching, is a mediating influence within the transactional curriculum. In the learning process, human beings, whether child or adult, develop an understanding of themselves and Other and in the process share a common heart. Pedagogical love cannot be perceived, nor received, in a curriculum environment in which feeling for the Other is absent or marginalized. Pedagogical love invites teachers and their students to actively participate in the understandings and knowledge that co‐emerge in the transactional curriculum.

Caught in the Middle: Evangelical Public Elementary Educators

The tensions that arise between private beliefs and teaching in the public school are examined in a case study of three evangelical elementary classroom educators who support constructivist pedagogy. This study involves teachers at differing points in their careers who strongly advocate a transactional curriculum in their professional community while existing in a theologically conservative community that often supports a return to traditional forms of educational practice. The article informs us that such teachers do exist, describes the range of challenges they face, and examines the roles of school, church, and family in mediating such challenges.

A Transactional Curriculum for the Transescent Learner

A Transactional Curriculum for the Transescent Learner

A Transactional Curriculum for the Transescent Learner

A Transactional Curriculum for the Transescent Learner