Macro-Design · Multi-session programs, full courses, or targeted 2-4 hour workshops

Decoding the Disciplines

Decoding the Disciplines is a seven-step pedagogical framework designed to help educators identify cognitive bottlenecks where students struggle, unpack the tacit mental processes experts use to overcome these hurdles, and explicitly teach those critical thinking skills.

When to use Decoding the Disciplines

This framework is highly effective when designing curricula for complex, highly specialized, or abstract disciplines where novices frequently struggle to grasp core critical thinking methodologies.

How Decoding the Disciplines works

To integrate this framework, start by analyzing course data or observations to pinpoint exact concepts where students stall. Work with subject matter experts to deconstruct their automatic, intuitive thinking processes into explicit steps, then design learning sessions that model these steps, provide targeted practice, and assess mastery.

Phases of Decoding the Disciplines

  1. Step 1: Identify a bottleneck: Pinpoint a place where many learners get stuck in understanding or doing something essential. Facilitators or teaching teams list specific sticking points observed in learners' work.
  2. Step 2: Uncover the mental move: Find out what experts do, often tacitly, to get past that bottleneck. Through a decoding interview, a peer questions the expert until the hidden steps are spelled out.
  3. Step 3: Model the mental move: Show learners the expert steps explicitly. The facilitator demonstrates the thinking out loud, using examples, analogies or visual walkthroughs of each step.
  4. Step 4: Give practice & feedback: Learners practise the mental move themselves and get feedback on it. Participants work short targeted exercises while the facilitator or peers give quick feedback.
  5. Step 5: Motivate & lessen resistance: Address emotional bottlenecks, such as beliefs or feelings that block learners from accepting a new way of thinking. The facilitator acknowledges resistance and shows why the move is worth making.
  6. Step 6: Assessment: Check whether learners have mastered the specific mental move. The facilitator uses a focused task or rubric to see if the bottleneck has been overcome.
  7. Step 7: Share: Share what was learned about the bottleneck and the teaching approach with colleagues. Participants document and present their findings so others can build on them.

Key principles

  • Targeted Intervention: Focus instructional design on specific 'bottlenecks' where learning commonly stalls.
  • Making Tacit Knowledge Explicit: Unpack and model the subconscious mental moves that experts perform automatically.
  • Constructive Alignment: Align modeling, practice, feedback, and assessment directly with the identified cognitive bottleneck.
  • Systemic Awareness: Address emotional, motivational, and systemic barriers (such as implicit bias or racism) that hinder student success.

Best for

  • Critical thinking development
  • Complex problem-solving
  • Curriculum alignment
  • Inclusive and equitable course design

Considerations

  • Requires significant self-reflection and time from subject matter experts to deconstruct their own automated thinking.
  • Traditional applications may focus too narrowly on cognitive content, requiring intentional integration of equity-focused frameworks like 'Disrupting the Disciplines' to address systemic bottlenecks.

Attribution & sources

Developed by Joan Middendorf, Leah Shopkow, and David Pace; expanded by Erika Lee, with adaptations on 'Disrupting the Disciplines' by Attas and Yeo.

Primary source

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