{"id":35109,"date":"2024-01-22T00:00:54","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T08:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35109"},"modified":"2024-01-22T03:25:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T11:25:45","slug":"35109-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/35109-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Concepts, Trouble and Suspicion"},"content":{"rendered":"

I picked up and began to read Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding[1]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>and came across the concept of \u201cThreshold Concept\u201d[2]<\/a> I began to wonder what threshold concepts I or my department teach.\u00a0 I am an assistant professor of social work at a small Christian liberal arts university located in the corn fields of Central Ohio.\u00a0 Our department is tasked with preparing our students to be generalist practitioners in the field of social work.\u00a0 The Council of Social Work Education (CSWE) which accredits our program tasks us with teaching nine social work competencies focusing on topic such as ethics, promoting advocacy and justice, recognizing diversity, working with \u201cindividuals, families, groups and organizations\u201d and policy. [3]<\/a>\u00a0 While our ultimate goal is to prepare students to be effective practitioners, our more immediate goal is to prepare students for their senior year field education experience.\u00a0 CSWE considers field education to be the \u201csignature pedagogy\u201d, which CSWE defines as \u201celements of instruction and socialization that teach future practitioners the fundamental dimensions of professional work in their discipline: to think, to perform, and to act intentionally, ethically and with integrity.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 I think the term signature pedagogy and threshold concepts have similarities. Meyer and Land define threshold concepts as \u201ca transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learned cannot progress.\u201d [5]<\/a>\u00a0 Our social work students cannot progress without learning and demonstrating the nine competencies.<\/p>\n

As I read the books and watched the video, I considered not only what our threshold concepts are, but what do I think our department teaches that is \u201ctroublesome knowledge\u201d[6<\/a>] I<\/u><\/span>\u00a0considered our Code of Ethics published by the National Association of Social Workers.\u00a0 The Code of Ethics contains the profession\u2019s values and principles that guide our practice; concepts such as \u201cservice, social justice, dignity and worth of the person.\u201d[7<\/a>]<\/u> Most <\/span>of the time the values and principles are not troublesome knowledge, we teach students how they parallel with scripture.\u00a0 However, as you get into the standards of practice, we find some troublesome knowledge.\u00a0 Many first-year students do not like it when they learn that they are not ethically allowed to share their faith with their clients.\u00a0 Another is the concept of self-determination<\/em>, many students want to help people and give them the right answers, yet we must allow clients to make their own decisions.\u00a0 A student just recently talked about how she had that aha moment that we cannot help everyone.\u00a0 She talked about a homeless client that appeared to be struggling with mental health issues refused to get a mental health evaluation and refused from her a blanket and food.\u00a0 As much as she wanted to help him, she realized that he had to make his own decisions.<\/p>\n

Another threshold concept, that can be troublesome knowledge which Glynis Cousin [8]<\/a> discussed, is Otherness.\u00a0 Our program spends a lot of classroom time ensuring that students understand this threshold concept.\u00a0 We work to help them understand their level of ethnocentrism, their biases, and the various social groups to which they belong.\u00a0 For those who may be unfamiliar with the term ethnocentrism, the American Psychological Association defines it as \u201cthe practice of regarding one\u2019s own ethnic, racial or social group as the center of all things\u201d and the \u201ctendency to judge one\u2019s group as superior to other groups.\u201d [9]<\/a>\u00a0 I just had a recent example of a student experiencing troublesome knowledge last fall.\u00a0 As part of our curriculum, I have to teach the concept of Critical Race Theory (CRT).\u00a0 I tell students the resource that I use and how the author of the book states that even among those who embrace CRT not everyone agrees on every concept, but these are ones most can agree upon.[10]<\/a>\u00a0 As part of the course evaluation the student was upset that I taught from a book that has been banned in some schools.\u00a0 The student was unable to get past the idea that just maybe what he had previously been taught or heard about CRT and what various school boards believe about CRT might possibly be wrong.\u00a0 He was unable to view the world from another group\u2019s perspective.\u00a0 This of course reminded me of Kathryn Schulz\u2019s book Being Wrong[11]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

There is so much that can be discussed on how these ideas relate to leaders and leadership development.\u00a0 However, I want to conclude by discussing comments made by Ray Land, Jan Meyer and Michael Flanagan in Threshold Concepts in Practice.<\/em>[12]<\/a>\u00a0 In the introduction to the book they suggest that higher education institutions have become service providers, and that the student should be comfortable throughout their educational experience[13]<\/a>\u00a0 While in Oxford, Dr. Martyn Percy challenged us saying that \u201cEducation is schooling in suspicion\u201d and that we need to \u201cteach suspicion or you fail.\u201d[14]<\/a> Teaching students to be suspicious does not encourage comfort.\u00a0 I agree with Percy\u2019s comments, yet I also agree with Land, Meyer and Flanagan\u2019s comments.\u00a0 As a small private institution, our main source of revenue is students and without students, we will cease to exist, so I am tasked with keeping students comfortable.\u00a0 Yet, I want to challenge my students, I want them to be uncomfortable and suspicious.\u00a0 I struggle to know how to balance the two, so I have reached what Robert Coven discussed as a threshold barrier.[15]<\/a>\u00a0 I am being tasked with reviewing my course designs, picking out the \u201cjewels in the curriculum\u201d and going to other professors, experts, and learning from them how they effectively engage their students, so that I can have my aha moment and become an expert.[16]<\/a> [17]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Jan H Meyer and Ray Land, eds.\u00a0 Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge<\/em> (New York: Routledge, 2006).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Meyer and Land, eds, 3.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Council on Social Work Education. Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards for Baccalaureate and Master\u2019s Social Work Programs <\/em>ww.cswe.org\/getmedia\/bb5d8afe-7680-42dc-a332-a6e6103f4998\/2022-EPAS.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Council on Social Work Education, 20.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Meyer and Land, eds, 3.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Meyer and Land, eds. xv.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> National Association of Social Workers, Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers<\/em> https:\/\/www.socialworkers.org\/About\/Ethics\/Code-of-Ethics\/Code-of-Ethics-English<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Glynis Cousin, \u201cThreshold Concepts, Troublesome Knowledge and Emotional Capital.\u201d In Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge<\/em> edited by Jan H Meyer and Ray Land, New York: Routledge, 2006.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> American Psychological Association \u201cEthnocentrism\u201d APA Dictionary of Psychology, accessed on January 19, 2024, https:\/\/dictionary.apa.org\/ethnocentrism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, \u00a0Critical Race Theory<\/em> 3rd<\/sup> ed. (New York: NYU Press, 2023).<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2010).<\/em><\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Ray Land, Jan H.F. Meyer and Michael T. Flanagan, eds. Threshold Concepts in Practice (Boston: Sense Publishers<\/em>,EBSCO.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Land, Meyer, and Flanagan, xi.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> Martyn Percy (lecture, Portland Seminary, Oxford England, September 23, 2023).<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a> Robert Coven, \u201cBreaking Through: Threshold Concepts as a Key to Understanding, November 28, 2018, Tedx Talks, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GCPYSKSFky4<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a> Meyer and Land, eds, 198,<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a> Robert Coven, 01:20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I picked up and began to read Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding[1] and came across the concept of \u201cThreshold Concept\u201d[2] I began to wonder what threshold concepts I or my department teach.\u00a0 I am an assistant professor of social work at a small Christian liberal arts university located in the corn fields of Central Ohio.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"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":[2967,1429],"class_list":["post-35109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03","tag-meyer","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35109","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\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35109"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35132,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35109\/revisions\/35132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}