Threshold Concepts and Environmental Education: A Graduate-Level Multidisciplinary Seminar
Abstract
This session describes my eight years of experience in teaching and learning about the environment from an interdisciplinary perspective. Drawing on the results of in-depth interviews, I share faculty and student perspectives on an interdisciplinary graduate-level seminar in Biocomplexity. The seminar aims to facilitate communication among the disciplines involved about the relationship between human and environmental systems. Offered every semester since Fall 2002, thirty-seven faculty members and 124 graduate students have attended at least one class session since program inception. Approximately 50 students have attended at least one full 15-week seminar; several have been involved for multiple semesters. I use the idea of “threshold concepts” to assess if and how the course introduces students to the core concepts of other disciplines. Interviewees described how formative educational experiences shaped their learning in this course and their understanding of other disciplines.
Location
Room 2903
Recommended Citation
Mobley, Catherine, "Threshold Concepts and Environmental Education: A Graduate-Level Multidisciplinary Seminar " (2010). SoTL Commons Conference. 87.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sotlcommons/SoTL/2010/87
Threshold Concepts and Environmental Education: A Graduate-Level Multidisciplinary Seminar
Room 2903
This session describes my eight years of experience in teaching and learning about the environment from an interdisciplinary perspective. Drawing on the results of in-depth interviews, I share faculty and student perspectives on an interdisciplinary graduate-level seminar in Biocomplexity. The seminar aims to facilitate communication among the disciplines involved about the relationship between human and environmental systems. Offered every semester since Fall 2002, thirty-seven faculty members and 124 graduate students have attended at least one class session since program inception. Approximately 50 students have attended at least one full 15-week seminar; several have been involved for multiple semesters. I use the idea of “threshold concepts” to assess if and how the course introduces students to the core concepts of other disciplines. Interviewees described how formative educational experiences shaped their learning in this course and their understanding of other disciplines.
