So, I don’t know if you noticed this, but I haven’t posted anything here since March. To break the streak I figured I’d start by posting the slides from my presentation at the LOEX conference back in Denver in May. Yeah, yeah…I’m six months late on this. But, with the the LOEX Fall Focus only two weeks away, what better time to remind people that some library instructors aren’t down with the ACRL Framework? In fact, my presentation, “Reconsidering Threshold Concepts,” was basically a 45-minute crash-course in the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical failures of the Framework.
However, don’t read me as saying that embracing the Framework is a dumb thing to do. As I tried to make clear in the presentation (even if the slides don’t convey it), my intent by criticizing the Framework was to strengthen it, not to shame it. After all, there is no perfect theory. About anything. Every theory or framework or method or position can be criticized. The key is in knowing how to deal with those criticisms. And my presentation was about taking hold of the theoretical foundations of the ACRL Framework and giving a good shake to see whether I could feel comfortable standing on it. I’ll let you decide for yourself if you’re comfortable. In the absence of a recording, I can only hope the sentence fragments spread across the slides will suggest a coherent argument.
Oh, and the conference theme was “Perfect Your Craft” and everyone worked really hard to create beer-themed presentations (my personal favorite title being Alison Hicks’ “Drinking on the Job: Integrating Workplace Information Literacy into the Curriculum”). Just had to get that out there in case you viewed the slides and thought I was an alcoholic or something.
http://www.slideshare.net/lanewilkinson/reconsidering-threshold-concepts-loex-2015-denver-co
Were you met with pitchforks and torches after the presentation? 😉
I wish I was. Actually, the crowd really seemed to love it. Heard later that it was the highest attended presentation of the conference.
Congratulations! Not sure why you would have preferred the pitchforks. Does it concern you that so many librarians are apparently not on board with the Framework?
I’m glad that lots of librarians are resisting the Framework. I just worry that many are resisting for the wrong reasons. I’ve seen a lot of the “I don’t understand it so I reject it” mentality. And that bothers me. It’s intellectual laziness.
I’ve been reading Farrell, Robert. “Reconsidering the Relationship Between Generic and Situated IL Approaches: The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition in Formal Information Literacy Learning Environments, Part I.” Library Philosophy and Practice (e-Journal), November 20, 2012. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/842. and “Part II.” Library Philosophy and Practice (e-Journal), November 12, 2013. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/1049. He uses the work of Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus on how one can move from novice to expert to analyze attempts up to 2013 to move beyond teaching library skills as information literacy. He wrote before the Framework, but the Dreyfus model presents a complex and nuanced view of becoming expert. It makes Threshold Concept Theory seem naive and oversimplified at best. I don’t know what it is at worst right now, but purposely mystifying feels about right.
I remain a proponent of teaching and assessing to core concepts, though, and remain impatient with a focus on testable skills that make assessment into an exercise in accountability more than improvement in learning. So I happily prefer to debunk, subvert, and transform the “threshold” concepts in the Frames and leave the Standards in my archives files for now.
Jim, I just spent 20 minutes looking into the Dreyfus model and you are completely correct. It is so much more robust than threshold concept theory. So much better researched and documented too. In a similar vein, I’ve been taken in by Hmelo-Silver and Pfeiffer’s Structure-Behavior-Function theory of distinguishing novices from experts.(“Comparing expert and novice understanding of a complex system from the perspective of structures, behaviors, and functions” http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0364-0213(03)00065-X).
The thing I don’t get is that psychologists, educators, neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists have been researching the novice/expert distinction for decades and have put together some amazingly powerful theories of how novices become experts. There are tens of thousands of books and articles out there on expertise. And then threshold concept theory comes along and completely ignores all of it? Here’s a fun party trick: bet someone $10 that they can’t find actual psychologists or cognitive scientists writing approvingly about threshold concepts. You’ll win every time.
What always niggled at me about TCT was how is sounded and felt a lot like cognitive apprenticeship and situated learning, even down to their approach to assessment (they do have one, BTW), but never a mention or citation of Lave, Wenger, Brown, Duguid, Collins, or any of several others who did some real research.