ABSTRACT. Failure is often perceived as an experience to be avoided, silenced, or hidden. In this session, however, we will look at failure (perhaps) anew and as a 'native informant', leading us, if we so choose, over thresholds and closer to our selves.

We borrow the term ‘native informant’ from anthropology and other social science fields that draw on ethnographic  approaches to research. Khan (2005) describes the native informant as ‘the person who translates her culture for the researcher, the outsider’ (p. 2022), and Park Nelson (2016) explains that 'the native informant is a valuable asset for a researcher in search of the cultural truth of a community, society, or other subculture' (p. 33). In troubling the notion of 'failure' and seeing failure as a 'native informant' – we might also see it as a threshold concept – a guide serving to cast light on and helping us to understand more deeply the ‘previously inaccessible’ (Meyer & Land, 2003) landscape and deeper truths of our selves.

Through the lens of failure as a native informant, several 'big questions' emerge which we will explore together: Must thresholds always be 'positive', propelling us towards an identified threshold, or might they reveal alternative and unanticipated landscapes for transformation? Where are thresholds located – within the discipline or within the self? As we delve into these questions, we will draw both on work exploring the 'failure' stories of academics and academic developers and our own professional experiences.

I look forward to exploring with you. 

ABSTRACT. Since the publication of Sicily Statement in 2003, teachers of evidence-based health care (EBHC) have become aware that students struggle to put these concepts and skills into practice as clinicians. For over nearly the same period, the explanatory Threshold Concept Framework (TCF) has demonstrated that transformative conceptual learning is key to gaining disciplinary knowledge and expertise but can be troublesome for students. Consequently, this framework has improved student outcomes by identifying and targeting these troublesome transformative concepts with pedagogical support. Local experts and medical students at an Australian university medical school were interviewed about their experiences of threshold concepts in learning and teaching EBHC and biostatistics. During a year-long case-study series, students were invited to keep a reflective journal of the critical thinking they employed at troublesome conceptual learning moments. Journal and interview data were analysed using a novel abductive analysis method that applied a combined theoretical framework of the TCF, Vygotskian educational development theory and relevant theoretical learning models. The findings suggest that assimilation of key overarching concepts initiates a core transformation of knowledge and disciplinary perspectives, leading to new ways of thinking and practising with augmented clinical expertise. Language and critical thinking both assist in this; language acts as the central cognitive bridge that initiates and enables critical thinking for transformative conceptual learning. Dialogue with experts and peers is important for student learning, but self-teaching, as inner speech, is significant in exploiting six crucial critical thinking steps identified that unlock transformation. It is proposed that critical thinking can be harnessed by curricular design to assist students to reach their full potential in learning these threshold concepts for application in the clinical environment. A new model is presented that emphasises the transformed ways of thinking and practising which students must gain for metamorphosis to clinical practitioner.

ABSTRACT. Student resistance and racism - the residual effects of colonialism - are regular, persistent challenges for students and teachers in Indigenous Studies. Identifiable behaviours such as anger, silence, fear or guilt have been labelled white fragility and are said to reflect inherent white privilege. While cataloguing and documenting these behaviours can reassure teachers that their experiences are shared, the labels themselves are less instructive when it comes to guiding teaching or learning. This presentation draws on qualitative research conducted through semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students enrolled in Indigenous Studies courses at three Australian universities. The study used the threshold concepts framework as a mode of inquiry to explore the nature of potential learning challenges for students. The study findings suggest that students experience a convoluted and challenging liminal continuum from not-knowing to knowing. While the learning experience can be emotional, and difficult, learners in the study also experienced significant transformative shifts in understanding of themselves and Indigenous curriculum. Using the outline of the rites of passage the presentation charts the preliminal, liminal and post-liminal phases of student learning illuminating learners’ progression from resistance to understanding and sometimes advocacy. There is some irony in apply a rites of passage framework in an Indigenous Studies context and yet the associated notions of humility or being a novice or separation resonate strongly with this study. Considering student learning in Indigenous Studies as a rite of passage offers new ways to consider students’ classroom behaviour and to create teaching which fosters transformative learning.

ABSTRACT. Integrating authentic translation projects into translation curricula has been widely recognised as key to enhancing students’ translation competence and developing their professional identities. Although some of the research papers making this argument highlight the fact that this type of authentic learning experience might be difficult for learners, none of them has attempted to look at sources of that difficulty from the students’ perspective. Considering this gap, this research aims to use the Threshold Concept Framework (Meyer and Land 2003) to investigate the troublesome areas that undergraduate translation students go through in a project-work classroom context. It also aims to explore the impact that such contexts might have in transforming their identities from being students of translation into professional translators. The study will be situated within the module of Scientific and Technical Translation that is offered by the programme of English Language and Translation at a Saudi university. In this module, the students collaboratively work on a simulated or authentic translation project so that they can deal with the actual process of managing a professional project from start to finish. The researcher will be teaching the module herself, and will invite other colleagues in the same department to participate in teaching the module to other groups. To get deep insights into the liminality that the students go through in their project journey, data concerning how the students react to and progress in the project will be obtained via observations and in-depth interviews. The researcher will also interview the teacher participants in order to gain insight into their views about their experience with the project, and their views about the students’ learning. It is hoped that that the results will facilitate the development of strategies to help teachers improve their future syllabi to better facilitate their students’ transitions into the professional community.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates potential ontological and epistemological threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003, 2005) encountered by the facilitators and members of a faculty learning community (Cox, 2004) in a post-1992 university in Scotland. The faculty learning community brought together a diverse group of academics and professional services personnel with the aim of supporting them in the university via the medium of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Fanghanel, Pritchard, Potter, & Wisker, 2016). The community followed the Miami model proposed by Cox (2004). However, there were a number of thresholds encountered by both the facilitators and members of the community, which meant that progress was slow, resulting in disappointment for some of the members. On reflection, the faculty learning community’s original purpose of investigating the use of SoTL was over ambitious, and its strength was a more subtle support of the development of academic identity of the individuals involved, through growing friendships and professional support and exchange of knowledge and experience (Wenger, 1998). This is important as it challenged the facilitators’ and members’ understanding of the purpose of a faculty learning community, reframing it as a human rather than an academic endeavour. The faculty learning community also allowed the members to develop and articulate their understanding of the university as a complex entity, and their place and contribution within it.

ABSTRACT. Getting published in the publishing shark pool: a conceptual threshold crossing

Gina Wisker, University of Brighton

Maggi Savin Baden, University of Worcester

Writing is only the journey’s start. Getting published is essential, and as academics we are increasingly pressurised to publish more prolifically, in certain journals (international, highly-ranked, in English). Attempting publication, we face editors, reviewers, our own hesitancies, and the troublesomeness of wrestling ideas, research and writing into publishable form. Dissemination, beyond publishing, ensures reading , engagement and acting because of our work. Publishing seems a mystifying process , a ‘shark pool’. We argue that actually getting published resembles crossing a conceptual threshold. The writing-in-process, identifying publication outlets, submitting, responding to feedback, re-writing until it is acceptable and accepted are all crucial steps (Wisker, 2015) involving passing through liminal spaces encumbered with uncertainties, defamiliarisation, troublesomeness and the gradual forming of a finished, acceptable, accepted, publication. Published, we authors feel we have crossed a conceptual threshold (Kiley &Wisker, 2009; Wisker &Savin Baden, 2009).The work accepted, we are accepted, recognised, valued. We see it differently knowing we presented ideas, arguments, new knowledge well and will have a readership engaging with our work which goes out into the world!: a wonderful breakthrough moment of achievement and confirmation.

We use (i) experiences of published academic writers (using semi-structured open-ended narrative interviewing) ; (ii) our own experiences of writing and getting published (interviewing each other) exploring, demystifying that troubled process of struggling through liminal spaces until the words are printed. Finally we identify the extraordinary sense of concretisation, realisation and arrival produced by successfully navigating liminal spaces and crossing conceptual thresholds of being actually published.

ABSTRACT. Liminality studies focus on transformation. The liminal model of van Gennep and Turner implies a linear process of transformation: someone is transformed from one identity status into another. For Early Career Academics, status changes can come from getting published in a leading journal, maybe through passing probation or, in the US system, from gaining tenure. Studies on early career academics provide much evidence of the difficulties experienced during this period. However, little seems to have been written about those who fail to complete their liminal journey. My focus is on those who occupy a status of being in permanent liminality. Maybe they become Adjunct staff or other forms of contingent staff. Possibly, they have failed to publish and although they don’t literally perish, their hopes of getting published disappear. The human cost to those in such situations is immense. More needs to be done to help these colleagues!

ABSTRACT. This presentation and Q&A draws on a two-part final draft paper addressing:

Threshold Concepts, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding in the context of nursing-residential care and the conceptual framework known as Hodges' Health Career – Care Domains – Model.

Hodges' model is introduced to explain its structure, content and applications. Threshold concepts are explored from the idea of thresholds generally and in scientific and health contexts. Relevant literature is outlined in brief to highlight the importance of this topic in law, policy, practice and society. The educational challenges within the social care sector of residential and nursing homes are identified. It is here, where deprivation of liberty safeguarding can be acutely experienced by residents, staff, managers and primary and secondary care teams. Relevant aspects of law in the care of people in residential care and other settings (hospitals, intensive care) are also highlighted. These include freedom, best interests, mental capacity and beneficence.

A series of figures will reflect the conference themes, the scope and potential application of Hodges' model. This relationship building exercise is supported by care concepts drawn from the author's clinical experience. In addition to Meyer and Land, a key reference cited (c/o the TC discussion group) is Kinchin (2016) on concept mapping. This presentation also builds upon the workshop format presented in Durham 2014. Directions for further study will be provided, including meetings with the creator of Hodges' model and the prospect (as a variable hours tutor) of a small pilot study. In this student nurses (and nursing associates?) would apply Hodges' model to their own well-being during their course of study and placements.

ABSTRACT. Threshold Concepts are proposed by Meyer and Land (2003) as a way to identify the most important concepts in disciplines in higher education They necessitate that students make more sense of knowledge when they become more aware of their learning experiences and go through epistemological and ontological shifts in their ways of thinking and practicing (Meyer & Land, 2003; Davies, 2006). As a result, students become able to think, talk and act like professionals. Though teacher education prepares students to become teachers who provide knowledge to and facilitate learning experiences among students, little research has been conducted on identifying threshold concepts in ELT teacher education especially in a non-English speaking country like Oman. This Ed.D research-based presentation describes an investigation of threshold concepts in ELT teacher education as perceived of and experienced by Omani student teachers in their journey towards developing an initial teacher identity. The study implements a mixed methods approach and draws on the findings of analysing 212 questionnaire forms and 20 interviews from two Omani colleges.

The findings conclude that critical thinking, classroom management, teaching methods and assessment are threshold concepts in teacher education. They also indicate that there may be other characteristics of threshold concepts. In addition, they show that Y1 student teachers tend to experience language-oriented concepts as threshold concepts, whereas Y4 student teachers are more concerned about pedagogy-oriented concepts. Such findings will help educators, course designers and instructors improve the curriculum of ELT teacher education for developing students’ initial teacher identity.

ABSTRACT. In this session we invite colleagues interested in or involved with the teaching of business- and management-related concepts to students outside of the traditional Business School environments. In particular, we are keen to explore the universality of so-called "threshold concepts": are these true thresholds to the subject per se and thus apply to ALL students learning a specific subject? Or are do these thresholds depend upon the door of entry into a subject?

We propose to open the session with a brief account of our experiences with threshold concepts in operations management and (micro)economics in the delivery of relevant programme/units/modules outside of traditional Business School environments. We have found that in some cases that concepts typically acknowledged threshold have been troublesome for students and once they have grasped this that their understanding of the subject is enriched and fundamentally changed; in other instances, we have found there to be no "threshold" to cross.

This discussions will seek to promote sharing of experiences and thinking in this area, with the ultimate aim of collaborating and establishing a formal project to investigate further to enhance both student learning and pedagogical understanding.

ABSTRACT. The strength of Threshold Concepts is their breadth of applications due to their discipline-specific nature. However, the framework does not take into account how individual students navigate and negotiate cultural contested spaces. My ethnographic research of a small cohort of German theology students in Jerusalem brought to light that in disciplines where long-held world views or beliefs are fostered and which have an affective dimension (Timmermans, Rattray), the focus must be more on learners’ individual experiences and development rather than on teachers imposing thresholds that students must pass (Rowbottom, Loughlin & Heading). It could be argued that it is impossible to identify generic thresholds such as critical thinking in theology, given that students come from different entry-points before being exposed to the curriculum and might have already passed certain thresholds. Regardless of whether threshold concepts have been defined or not, the curriculum provides a lens, or different lenses, for students to make sense of their extra-curricular experiences. This experience and learning cannot be isolated from the particular socially constructed space where it takes place. This could, for example, encompass a culture, group or community of which learners are members. This will become the liminal space on the journey towards a portal that might not be predefined by teachers but rather negotiated by the students themselves. Once this portal is crossed, students might navigate into different, sometimes opposite directions as was the case in my research. Presuming that there is student variation in the preliminal, liminal and postliminal stages, can threshold concepts still serve as a framework that informs curriculum design? I argue that an analysis of individual journeys and the specific learning context makes the student voice more explicit in the definition of threshold concepts.

ABSTRACT. This research investigates how higher education (HE) teachers across a number of disciplines use multimodal screencasts (videos) to explain important concepts to students. Not all concepts within the study are threshold concepts (Meyer and Land, 2003), yet all concepts chosen are difficult for students to grasp. The study explores the reasons for choosing these concepts, the teacher’s explanation of why (or not) they consider the concept to be a threshold concept and how they deconstructed this concept within a screencast, using multiple modes (text, voice, image).

The use of an Inquiry Graphics (IG) Framework (Lackovic, 2018) with HE teachers provided a framework to unpack the screencast, in order to determine key moments of learning and explore the multiplicity of modes used to teach these. This framework which builds on Peircean semiotics, in which the conceptual progression of signs (from indexes, to icons, to symbols) used to convey meaning is explored. Additional workshops with students using the IG Framework gave the opportunity to explore their perspective on developing their knowledge of these 'troublesome concepts'.

Additionally, the analysis of the screencast using a social semiotic, multi-modal analytical framework, will show which modes (image, voice, text) are foregrounded, which mode is a major/minor carrier of meaning and what that meaning is perceived to be.

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses my PhD research project about occupational therapy students learning related to disciplinary threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003;2005) on role-emerging practice placements. Occupational therapy (OT) students need to complete 1000 hours of practice placement in a range of settings, including role-emerging, non-traditional settings such as charities and non-governmental organisations during their BSc (Hons) or MSc Occupational therapy pre-registration programme. My research applies threshold graphics in this context. Threshold graphics are diverse visual media applied to reflect deeply on threshold concepts (Lackovic, 2020). The study utilises a learning design that embeds the creation of associated threshold graphics by OT students to support and facilitate the learning and knowledge development on their role-emerging practice placements. Creative media are scarcely applied within the learning approaches used in OT student education, although the use of these media and graphics as a therapeutic tool has long been part of occupational therapy practice and role-emerging settings. Currently, occupational therapy education on practice placement appears to lack a specific pedagogy related to an encompassing, disciplinary and creative learning of key concepts. To address the gap, I’ll explore and establish threshold graphics and concepts related to occupational therapy students’ learning on role-emerging practice placements. Data will be collected via 1:1 semi-structured IG elicitation interviews with 12-15 BSc (Hons) and MSc Occupational therapy students on their role-emerging practice placement, in addition to students’ inquiry graphics diaries.

References Lacković, N. (2020) 'Inquiry Graphics in Higher Education. New Approaches to Knowledge, Learning and Methods with Images’ Palgrave Macmillan Meyer, JHJ & Land, R (2003) Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 46 (3) Meyer, J. H. F. (2005) 'Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning', Higher education, 49(3)

ABSTRACT. This lightning talk describes my initial research into using threshold concepts to redesign and potentially reshape adult education art students’ learning experiences as part of my M.A. in Education at Oxford Brookes University. Using an analytical auto-ethnographic methodology, field notes (recorded in my reflective blog) were assembled in response to observed learners’ reactions. Additional data was collected in students’ sketchbook comments and an end of project focus group interview, triangulated with current literature to reveal contextual shifts. I propose that a Liminal Learning Experience (LLE) changes learning in multiple ways by challenging learners to take risks and to act and think using self-awareness. However, there are issues of inaccessibility and implicit stresses. This small-scale study highlights the pedagogical implications of a LLE and the future need for a more reflexive, collaborative, excursive curriculum design.

ABSTRACT. This paper is about "threshold graphics", the approach and term I introduced in the recent book "Inquiry Graphics in Higher Education: New Approaches to Knowledge, Learning and Methods with Images" (Lacković, 2020). In a nutshell, threshold graphics brings together threshold concepts and inquiry graphics.

Inquiry graphics are visual media such as photographs, videos or drawings applied to support student and teacher reflection, dialogue and analysis, towards shared conceptual and professional understanding. An inquiry graphics approach adopts a semiotic theory of concepts, building on the triadic sign by C.S. Peirce. Although the literature on threshold concepts is vast, only few publications explicitly consider a semiotic approach (e.g. Land, Rattray and Vivian, 2014), which is surprising if we accept that communication and interpretation are key in conceptual development.

A threshold graphics approach explores and advances how visual media can be applied in higher education to support the teaching and learning of threshold concepts across disciplines. It suggests that thinking and conceptual development are not only abstract or verbal but include other modes of expression and thinking (Lacković, N., & Olteanu, 2020). In particular, a threshold graphics pedagogy invites learners and/or teachers to find or create visual media for the purpose of an in-depth concept inquiry. I’ll present this new approach and provide an activity design that incorporates wider sensory modes.

References Lacković, N. (2020). Inquiry Graphics in Higher Education: New Approaches to Knowledge, Learning and Methods with Images. Cham: Palgrave McMillan/Springer International Publishing. Lacković, N., & Olteanu, A. (2020). Rethinking educational theory and practice in times of visual media: Learning as image-concept integration. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1-16. Land, R., Rattray, J., & Vivian, P. (2014). Learning in the liminal space: a semiotic approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education, 67(2), 199-217.

ABSTRACT. Threshold concepts (TC) theory and literature (Meyer, et al., 2010) often evoke rich visual metaphors, such as the ‘portal’(Land & Rattray, 2017), ‘liquid’ learning (Savin-Baden, 2008) and a tunnel (Land, et al., 2014). Such sensory and visual metaphors are integral to the recently introduced approach of threshold graphics (TG) (Lacković, 2020), here explored in the context of social care. TG, as a teaching method, offers a critical approach for connecting often abstract and language-centric conceptual knowledge to everyday embodied, material and visual experience, using static or moving images as key vehicles of conceptual inquiry. A TG approach suggests learning threshold concepts may be mediated by exploring semiotic relations in between an abstract concept or theory and their embodied manifestations via diverse visual media, chosen or created by students and/or teachers to represent their subjective experiences (Lacković, 2020). TG helps reveal knowledge gaps by linking visual media descriptions and meanings to specific or varied conceptual understandings thereby an effective gateway to significant knowledge exploration, acquisition and critical engagement. Social care students learn to provide professional care to the most vulnerable in society through complex concepts arising from practice and theory. This paper presents an ongoing TC research with educators, knowledge contributors, graduates and students in social care education that explores threshold graphics as a teaching and learning tool. Early data of this research suggests that concepts tend to be described as either experiential/embodied/sensed or more theoretical/conceptual. For example, the concepts of abuse or violence are either deeply enmeshed with personal experiences posing difficulties of detachment or totally abstract such as political systems, without any obvious connection to students’ lives. In both cases, integration requires a focused methodological approach to identify and work through the troublesomeness and operationalise concepts as a professional social care worker as I’ll exemplify in this presentation.