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Like so many processes, learning is rarely linear; it is characterized by stops and starts, struggles and sudden successes. The Threshold Concept idea offers an interesting way to think about the learning process: “[Learning] has elements of slope and step, but also it has a series of summits; one of the most frustrating but also rewarding aspects of a [hike] is to breast a summit which you thought was the top of a hill, but which really just concealed another behind it. But it was nonetheless an intermediate peak, and from it you can see both ahead and behind in a new way… [It] gives you a clearer idea of where you have to go, and [a] look back at where you have come from and see how the path led there. In learning terms, that summit you have just [crested] is a ‘threshold concept’.” (Atherton, 2016, Threshold Concepts)

Features of a Threshold Concept

Transformative: A threshold concept is fundamentally transformative, resulting in a significant shift in the way the topic is thought about or understood. It is the point at which we might say someone goes beyond being able to get answers correct and has begun to think like a professional in the field -- like an engineer, like an electrician, like a nurse, etc. "It may be considered akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something...it represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing...without which the learning cannot progress." (Mayer and Land, 2003, Transformation)
(often) Troublesome: A threshold concept is likely to seem foreign, incoherent, or even counterintuitive to students at first and will likely present difficulty in mastering. It may even require the student to let go of former ways of thinking, doing, or seeing things, which can be a struggle both intellectually and emotionally. Guiding students to a threshold concept often means unearthing the myths or flaws in thinking they currently hold and "mythbusting" to help students see the shortcomings of their ideas before they are open to a new understanding. (Perkins, 2006, Troublesome)
(often) Irreversible: Because threshold concepts are transformative in nature, they are often irreversible. Once seen, they often cannot be unseen; once learned, they are difficult to unlearn. This can make it challenging for instructors, who are likely to forget what it was like to not know what they now know. "One of the difficulties teachers have is that of retracing the journey back to their own days of 'innocence,' when understandings of threshold concepts escaped them in the early stages of their own learning." (Cousin, 2005, Irreversible)
Integrative: Threshold concepts often serve as a connection point, like the hub of a wheel, bringing together various aspects of the topic that seemed disparate or unrelated. Grasping this one concept suddenly makes so many other concepts make sense and/or fit together. (Integrative)
Discursive: Crossing a threshold often enhances a students' ability to use vocabulary to express, reflect upon, and communication learned ideas. This is the idea that until you can clearly explain something in simple terms to someone who doesn't understand the concept, you haven't reached mastery of it! This feature often creates contagion, giving students the tools to help their peers reach the same plateau. "We have repeatedly seen students who have grasped a local threshold concept themselves enthusiastically and volubly attempt to lift their partners over the same threshold." (Flanagan and Smith, 2008, Discursive)
Liminality: The journey to a threshold concept is typically characterized by a state of liminality, a sense of instability, a "suspended state of partial understanding" or a limbo between confusion and understanding . At some (perhaps most) stages of the process, students are likely to feel stuck and frustrated. "This space is likened to that which adolescents inhabit: not yet adults, not quite children" (Cousin, 2006). And it is important to recognize that this dysphoric feeling isn't necessarily resolved once the threshold is reached. "Insights gained by learners as they cross thresholds can be exhilarating but might also be unsettling, requiring an uncomfortable shift in identity, or, paradoxically, a sense of loss" (Land, Meyer, and Baillie, 2010). Cognitively and emotionally, crossing a threshold is challenging work! (Cousin, 2006; Land, Meyer and Baillie, 2010; Liminality)

Threshold Concepts and Teaching

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Identifying threshold concepts can help guide your course design and improve your instruction. Once identified, threshold concepts serve as "jewels in the curriculum," those pivotal focus points for students. This can help faculty streamline their curriculum to focus on only the most important elements of a course and avoid over-filling it with extra content. It can also remind instructors to reflect on their own learning process to develop empathy for the emotional challenge of struggling to master difficult ideas.

Thinking about “training for the trail” might change the way you engage students in learning activities to prepare them for the mini-summits they will encounter, including making space for the fatigue and frustration they will experience on the climb. Prompting students to pause and take in the views from those “photo op” spots can reinforce learning, spark insights they hadn’t seen before, and encourage endurance to keep climbing.

"In short, there is no simple passage in learning from "easy" to "difficult"; mastery of a threshold concept often involves messy journeys back, forth and across conceptual terrain." (Cousin, 2006)

Resources

Threshold Concepts: Undergraduate Teaching, Postgraduate Training, Professional Development and School Education (A short introduction and bibliography from 2003 to 2018)
Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Implications for Course Design and Evaluation by Ray Land, Glynis Cousin, Jan H F Meyer, and Peter Davies
VIDEO: Ray Land on Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge