The Troublesome:

Threshold Concepts are, by definition, not easily grasped. One way of understanding their troublesome nature is to recognize when they are understood superficially. The student learns the concept mechanically, and is able to reproduce the teacher's expectations without internalizing the concept's fundamental meaning.

Reflections of a writing teacher, when a student performed well but did not cross the ePortfolio threshold:

Interestingly, a student like Tirso showed great strides in his writing—he went from not handing in assignments, to following the writing structure I gave him to the letter, to writing his own unique six page papers. SIX PAGES! He and I were both very impressed with his learning last semester (Spring 2011). However, his ePortfolio, in which he attempts to articulate what he has learned, is not very original at all. Most of the sources he posted came from somewhere else on the web, and his ideas are very straightforward and basic. By looking at his ePortfolio, one does not get the sense that he really understood the purpose of ePortfolios. However, he does show that he is able to outline the basic steps of the research paper, as I professed them.