Revising the Last Lesson- What do I really want students to walk away pondering?
In Chapter 6 of Naming What We Know (Adler-Kassner and Wardle), Heidi Estrem speaks of the complications and possible benefits of using threshold concepts instead of student learning outcomes. Estrem points out that “as a faculty member, [she] ha[s] seen firsthand how productive it can be to rearticulate course content as objectives or outcomes that can be identified to students and to which course materials are explicitly linked [...] outcomes-based approaches can be enormously useful tools for curricular development in higher education, then, particularly when no prior curricular framework existed” (91). I too, have had this experience. At the end of each class, I revisit the course objectives with the students. I ask them to reflect on whether or not they feel, personally, as if they can “check them off the list”. Looking back on the thresholds I was most drawn to, I see how this may be problematic to the overall ideas and concepts that I wanted to impart during the course