Bottlenecks and Thresholds
The Bottlenecks and Thresholds Initiative asks faculty teams (pairs, trios, or more) to work together to redesign key courses in the general education curriculum, especially by focusing on strategies for writing and research that address core disciplinary concepts and significant stumbling blocks that regularly prove challenging for students. This approach has two priorities: (1) exploring how to enhance student learning from the perspective of disciplinary (or interdisciplinary) thinking processes, and (2) considering how to use different classroom strategies for getting feedback on student understanding as a way of targeting faculty innovation efforts: what are the most modest changes that can have the largest impact on understanding?
The Bottlenecks and Thresholds summer workshop kicks off a year-long project whereby faculty teams will undertake one or more changes to their courses, implement the change(s), and report out on the impact. Participating faculty will receive stipends and participate in communities of practice with other faculty fellows in order to share ideas with colleagues throughout the implementation year.
For more information, see cndls.georgetown.edu/thresholds-and-bottlenecks.