ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the notion of liminal spaces, gaps and moments of uncertainty within programmes of study, and threshold concepts. It examines the concept of gaps as legitimate spaces within teaching and learning. Herbert Read proposed that the aim of education should be conceived as ‘the preparation of artists’. The anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep was the first modern theorist to consider liminality and liminal spaces in relation to his classic work ‘Rites of Passage’. Liminality is derived from the word ‘limen’, meaning a threshold, doorway or crossing place. The chapter also considers two approaches to learning which are student-centred, active and constructivist which will help students recognise and exploit the transformative potential of liminal spaces; these approaches are concept mapping and problem-based learning. Concept mapping is, ideally, a learning activity that students themselves should do to help them understand, connect and integrate their learning within and across topics.
