title: Threshold concepts in dental education.
abstract: The paper presents a conceptual framework to inform dental education. Drawing from a vast body of research into student learning, the simple model presented here has an explanatory value in describing what is currently observed to happen and a predictive value in guiding future teaching practices. We introduce to dental education the application of threshold concepts that have a transformative role in offering a new vision of the curriculum that helps to move away from the medieval transmission model of higher education towards a dual processing model that better reflects the way in which professionals operate within the discipline. Threshold concepts give a role for the student voice in offering a novice perspective which is paradoxically something that is out of reach of the subject expert. Finally, the application of threshold concepts highlights some of the weaknesses in the competency-based training model of clinical teaching.
authors: King's College London, King's Learning Institute, London, UK. ian.kinchin@kcl.ac.uk
authors: I M
authors: IM
authors: Kinchin
authors: L B
authors: LB
authors: Cabot
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Kobus
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Woolford
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D003210:Concept Formation; D003479:Curriculum; D004497:Education, Dental; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D017145:Models, Educational; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*