Threshold Concepts, Action Poetry and the Health Professions: An Interview with Ray Land

Transformative learning opportunities for students and educators during interprofessional healthcare practice experiences in higher education: Viewed through the lens of Threshold Concepts Theory

“…By reflecting on meaning as constructed in action by students, educators may become more attuned to structuring learning contexts to scaffold students towards and through threshold portals, developing a "pedagogy of threshold concepts" (Meyer & Timmermans, 2016, p. 25). Furthermore, Neve (2019) stresses the important role for healthcare educators in "helping learners to cross troublesome but vital thresholds so that they are able to accept and embrace uncertainty" (p. 7), along with increasing the resilience required in complex clinical practice (Land et al, 2018) Scaffolding is necessary, since the sheer volume and complexity of knowledge and skills to be acquired during interprofessional teamwork can leave a learner feeling uncertain at the edge of a threshold in familiar territory, and reluctant to step into the "unknown" of new learning experiences (Meyer & Land, 2006). This may be prevented by reframing predominantly competency-based incremental learning outcomes to include specific, interprofessional, interactive processes (Thistlethwaite, 2015) that scaffold students learning from a basic to an integrated understanding of what it means to work collaboratively among health professions.…”

“…The use of the threshold concepts framework to assist in the promotion of meaningful transformative learning and teaching experiences is considered by Neve (2019) as an important focus for research and practice. Indeed, threshold concepts have been described by Land, Neve and Martindale (2018) as being, specifically, discipline focused, which has allowed the framework to take hold in relation to knowledge acquisition and advancement in healthcare professions (Bhat, Burm, Mohan, Chahine, & Goldszmidt, 2018;Kinchin, Cabot, Kobus, & Woolford, 2011;Nicola-Richmond & Pepin, 2016Vaughan, 2016. However, the notion of threshold concepts does not currently provide either a discourse or a framework that has resonance across the collaborative practices of health professions.…”

Adopting Learning Analytics to Inform Postgraduate Curriculum Design: Recommendations and Research Agenda

“…Threshold concepts are important because business analytics is also a profession (cf. Land et al, 2018 ) that rely on evidence-based thinking and practices, that involves, key threshold concepts (e.g., digital literacy, appropriate use of business analytics terminology, critical appraisal of business analytics techniques and practices, and problem solving (technical, people, process).…”