{"id":28929,"date":"2022-10-04T09:58:58","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T16:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=28929"},"modified":"2022-10-04T09:58:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T16:58:58","slug":"threshold-concepts-further-up-further-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/threshold-concepts-further-up-further-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Threshold Concepts: Further up, further in."},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven years. From the sixth grade to graduating high school, seven years total, I took Spanish. This subject was taken seriously. I wanted to learn! Picturing myself speaking was enticing. However, nearly a year after graduating from high school, I was in Nicaragua for Spring Break. To my dismay, I had forgotten everything. All of those classes, practicing conjugations, translating, speaking, and, most importantly, test-taking \u2013 all of this with nothing to show for it. Yes, I had a minimal grasp of the basics. But I was far from fluent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> Could I have tried harder? Maybe. Were there better strategies I could have implemented to become conversational? Certainly. However, I would argue a key reason for this lack of success comes from the values of our American educational system. As a \u201cgood\u201d student, I developed a strategy for obtaining what I actually wanted: good test scores. This is not negating personal responsibility to an outside entity. Yes, my focus ought to have been mastery rather than an acceptable grade. However, there is an underlying current of values in the American educational system that I unwittingly flowed along \u2013 namely, information regurgitation prioritized over mastery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Students are conditioned for information regurgitation and dropping. Information is useful for scoring well on a test, and once it has served its purpose, forgotten. We may have more knowledge in our information-saturated world. But we have falsely assumed gaining more information is key to success in education. Dr. Edwin Friedman points out that our society has over-valued data and calls this being \u201cdata junkies.\u201d<\/span>[1]<\/span> But this information is not critically taken in, reflected upon, and connected with other areas of knowledge. Therefore, what we have is a world of perpetually increasing data, credulous information regurgitation in our dialogue, and a shallow understanding of the world around us.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is where understanding threshold concepts is key for a better future through education. Unlike utilitarian information regurgitation for test-taking, grasping knowledge as a threshold concept is not forgotten after it is used for a test or paper. Rather, a threshold concept becomes a part of the learner and follows the learner through the rest of his or her educational journey.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> A basic example of a threshold concept is babies learning to walk. They stumble, it is difficult, they don\u2019t \u201cget it.\u201d But once they \u201cget it,\u201d a portal to a new world with new possibilities is opened. They become expert walkers. This threshold concept of walking cannot be skipped in order to become a runner. One cannot sidestep division in order to get a head start on calculus. As with a video game requiring mastery of one level in order to advance to the next, one cannot shortcut threshold concepts to progress in one\u2019s educational journey.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> When it comes to guiding students along in their educational journey, teachers can often have great difficulty teaching threshold concepts that they intuitively \u201cget,\u201d concepts that are blatantly obvious to them, that it a challenge to remember what their mental models were like before they passed through this portal of a threshold concept. As a pastor, it is critical to keep this in mind when I am preaching biblical concepts that I understand to the core of my being, yet may be like a foreign language to the people I pastor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> Teaching outcomes for a basic grasp of information is easier in the short term. This is why course syllabi possess \u201clearning outcomes.\u201d However, learning for understanding is demanding. That being said, it is far more fulfilling. On the other side of the strain of effort to understand a threshold concept, there is joy in passing through the portal. There is joy in the challenge. And there is joy in discovering the journey is not over. It has just begun. As with a doorway into Narnia, we can go \u201cfurther up, further in.\u201d<\/span>[2]<\/span> Maybe one day I will pass through the doorway into Spanish fluency.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/span> Edwin H. Friedman, <\/span>A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (10th Anniversary, Revised Edition)<\/span><\/i> (Church Publishing, Inc., 2017) 103-108.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/span> C. S. Lewis, <\/span>The Chronicles of Narnia. Book 7: The Last Battle<\/span><\/i> (New York: HarperTrophy, 2005) 213.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seven years. From the sixth grade to graduating high school, seven years total, I took Spanish. This subject was taken seriously. I wanted to learn! Picturing myself speaking was enticing. However, nearly a year after graduating from high school, I was in Nicaragua for Spring Break. To my dismay, I had forgotten everything. All of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2007,332,1429,310,2369],"class_list":["post-28929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp","tag-education","tag-meyer","tag-teaching","tag-threshold-concepts","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28930,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28929\/revisions\/28930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}