The Teacher I Never Thanked

Episode 3 Thomas Price and Mastery Learning

On this episode of The Teacher I Never Thanked we hear from Thomas Price, who shares stories and insights from his experiences in the hospitality industry in the U.S. and reflects on two teachers who made a difference in his journey to becoming the first black Master Sommelier. In our follow-up discussion, we highlight examples and research related to mastery learning and culturally responsive pedagogy in recognizing diverse paths to learning. Finally, we open the door to a discussion of race and representation in our work that we carry on in a forthcoming episode.

Episode 2: Jamy Wheless and liminal learning

In this episode, we interview Jamy Wheless, who is a well-known US-based animator. We build on our conversation of the threshold concept, focusing on how we can help learners when they are in these marginal, threshold spaces. Jennifer Berger, a teacher educator at George Mason University, in her work on liminality, takes up the idea of threshold spaces, but rather than looking at what topics these could be across different disciplines, she thinks deeply about how to support learners when they find themselves in these threshold moments, what happens as what she calls the ‘edges of meaning making or knowing’. She writes about this as a “liminal space where can come to terms with the limitations of our knowing and thus begin to stretch those limits. This makes the liminal zones between our knowing and not knowing both difficult to understand—because they are constantly moving and being redefined—and also of central importance to our work as transformational educators”. Understandably, being at the edges of knowing is a variable experience for her students. While some love it, and find joy and transformation in difficult spaces, others experience anguish. Her paper talks about the responsibility of the teacher in these moments of liminality. She identifies three different responsibilities for teachers: 1. helping students find and recognize the edge, 2. being good company at the edge, and 3. helping to build firm ground in a new place. We will use Jamy’s stories to see examples of how teachers take on these three responsibilities. Resources: Jamy Wheless IMDB profile: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1924367/ [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1924367/] Berger, J. G. (2004). Dancing on the Threshold of Meaning: Recognizing and Understanding the Growing Edge. Journal of Transformative Education, 2(4), 336–351. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344604267697 [https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344604267697]

Episode 1: Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu and Threshold Concepts

Overview In this episode, we interview Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu. Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu was born and raised in Nairobi and moved to the United States to attend college in 1998. She has an MA in journalism from the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University and has worked as a journalist in New York City, Washington D.C., and Boston. She later received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Cape Town, graduating with distinction. Her fictional work has been published in Yale Review and Adda and she has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa. This year her debut novel Lucky Girl was published to great reviews. We will look at her story through a SOTL concept called ‘Threshold concept’, a model developed by Jan Meyer and Ray Land in the early 2000s. A ‘threshold concept’ is a concept that, once understood, changes the way that a person thinks about a topic. Jan Meyer and Ray Land explain: ‘A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress.’ (2003, p1). A threshold concept is essential for mastering the subject and for adopting the worldview of their graduate profession. It's also a concept that helps us understand that learning is not always easy but often highly unsettling and uncomfortable. Resources Lucky Girl by Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/lucky-girl/9780593133903 [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/lucky-girl/9780593133903] Meyer, J & Land, R. 2006. Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. An introduction. In: Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding. Taylor and Francis. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203966273-4/threshold-concepts-troublesome-knowledge-jan-meyer-ray-land?context=ubx&refId=7f9fff82-e11d-495d-bdea-43103376d129 [https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203966273-4/threshold-concepts-troublesome-knowledge-jan-meyer-ray-land?context=ubx&refId=7f9fff82-e11d-495d-bdea-43103376d129] Meyer, J., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines (pp. 412-424). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh https://unistudentwellbeing.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Theshold-Concepts-Prf04.pdf [https://unistudentwellbeing.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Theshold-Concepts-Prf04.pdf]