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

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

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