By: Kim Sanford on January 30, 2023
Joseph Campbell’s seminal work points to an underlying reality that myth and story speak to the human heart (or as Campbell would call it, the psyche). Through story we instruct, we connect, we inspire and persuade, and we even rejoice. It’s also how we deal with our imperfection, our brokenness. As Campbell says, “Modern literature…
By: Kally Elliott on January 29, 2023
(Note: I have no idea why the font changes from a light black to a bolded black. I played with all the options to change font and boldness, etc and nothing would work.) Most of us have probably read the quote by Joseph Campbell, “Follow your bliss.” I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it on many…
By: Cathy Glei on January 29, 2023
First Stage of the Journey: Call to Adventure It is a scary place to be. . . the moment you leave the status quo and pursue a call to adventure. It was March 23, 2021 for me. I was an elementary school teacher, Kindergarten, to be exact. School was supposed to be closed for two…
By: Kally Elliott on January 28, 2023
For the next eight weeks I get to teach a Family to Family Course for NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). The Family to Family Class is an education program for family members and caregivers of individuals living with mental illness. The program is designed to provide family members and caregivers with the tools and…
By: Dinka Utomo on January 27, 2023
A year ago, my son and daughter (9 and 7 years old) asked me, daddy is there any portal in this world for us to go to another dimension? Then the next question that surprised me quite a bit was, daddy, is there any portal in the world for us to go to heaven and meet…
By: Jana Dluehosh on January 26, 2023
Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee, WI is known as one of the “happier” airports in the USA. Why you ask? Well Barry Bateman the former airport director who retired in 2020, Bateman made up the word and suggested the signage in order to add some comic relief to what can be a tense aspect of air travel. …
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on January 26, 2023
I was not looking forward to preparing for this week’s blog. I didn’t know why but I suspect it was because I elected not to purchase the book but to download it. I knew that it probably was not a good decision because I have never been a fan of e-books, I am old school.…
By: Adam Harris on January 26, 2023
After reading this week’s material and watching Robert Coven’s TED talk on threshold concepts, I can’t help but share my personal journey of struggling through certain thresholds regarding my faith, and in particular Scripture in higher education. I have a deep love and respect for the Bible. I couldn’t always say this, but I appreciate…
By: Todd E Henley on January 25, 2023
One week ago I started my inspectional reading of Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge by Jan H. F. Meyer and Ray Land. After 46 pages I was negatively asking, “What in the world is this book about?” In discouragement I placed the book down and was not looking forward to this post. I even thought,…
By: Pam Lau on January 25, 2023
The key to learning new concepts in any discipline is the realization that communication consists of confident competency. It is the orientation of all effort of what we give our lives to that builds not only our knowledge, but our competency. As I listened to the TED Talk by Robert Devon as he asked the…
By: Jenny Dooley on January 25, 2023
I’m not a trekkie! I’ve never been a Star Trek fan. I don’t particularly like science fiction. Back to the Future is as far as I go. To the trekkies out there, please don’t take offense. My family is full of Star Trek lovers. Believe me, I have viewed all iterations of Star Trek dating…
By: Cathy Glei on January 25, 2023
When I think about threshold concepts and the idea of moving through a threshold like a portal, I imagine teleportation, you know like in Doctor Who, Back to the Future . . . not sure why. When I think about portals, I think about a tardis maybe? When my three daughters were teenagers, they loved…
By: Scott Dickie on January 24, 2023
The challenge with this week’s reading—beyond the hard work of engaging in areas of study that are well outside of my understanding—is narrowing down the numerous thoughts I had while reading these papers (some of that reading more ‘inspectional’ than others!). Here are a few places my thoughts went to as I read: First, while…
By: Tim Clark on January 23, 2023
Recently I watched the 2016 film “The Arrival” in which 12 extraterrestrial spacecraft visit Earth. Mild spoiler alert: It turns out that how people engage with the aliens leads to a major threshold moment for humanity and alters the course of history. Last week I read the story of Jacob in Genesis. Jacob sent everything…
By: John Fehlen on January 23, 2023
I considered titling this blog post “Threshold Concepts for Dummies” because after reading these two extensive and comprehensive books I felt like, well…a dummy. I’m not being self-deprecating; I honestly felt dumb. I’ve been reading, thinking, studying, and pontificating large biblical/theological concepts for many, many years, and yet I have not been exposed to this…
By: Kim Sanford on January 23, 2023
The term threshold concepts inherently speaks of movement and flow from one place to another. Learners have a “transformative” experience where they understand previously “troublesome” knowledge, often by “integrating” concepts from multiple disciplines. The result of this experience is an “irreversible” clarity that is nonetheless “bounded”[i]. If that definition was a bit opaque at first,…
By: Jennifer Vernam on January 23, 2023
This week, I finished my LCP Assessment. If you have done yours, you know it asks for names of people who have influenced you in your career path. One of the names on my list is Don Harrison[1], who is a consultant we have used in the past, and from whom I have received various…
By: Mathieu Yuill on January 23, 2023
I wondered while watching the TEDx video if Dr. Coven has the gift of prophecy as he described the idea of a threshold concept as he used the example of a new driver learning to drive. My son is 17 and about to embark on in-car driving lessons. However, the journey to get him to…
By: Russell Chun on January 23, 2023
Бар’єри для навчання та момент «Ага», (Ukrainian) Barriers to Education and the Aha moment Part 1 – Barriers to Education (from an ESL perspective) I teach Ukrainian refugees on job training on Wednesdays. Mondays and Wednesdays I teach Central and South Americans in Intermediate Grammar. As an English as a Second Language teacher, I am…
By: Pam Lau on January 20, 2023
Reading Mining for Gold by Tom Camacho brought back strong memories of Bill Burnett’s and Dave Evan’s New York Times best-selling book, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived Joy-Filled Life. The similarities between the two books are almost identical in theme: True happiness comes from designing a life that works for you. On…