The Decoding Alphabet

The Decoding Alphabet is a piece associating each letter of the Latin alphabet with a concept of Decoding the Disciplines. It first appeared in 2019 in Didaktiknachrichten 11-2019.

The Alphabet

A

Assessment An integral part of the Decoding the Disciplines process serving to find out whether interventions triggered by Decoding have been effective.

B

Bottleneck A concept, task or line of thought where students frequently get stuck in their learning. Decoding the Disciplines investigates how experts are able to pass disciplinary bottlenecks.

C

Curse of Expertise While disciplinary expertise is a prerequisite for teaching it is also a major obstacle. Over time concepts become so clear to teachers and processes become so automatic that it gets increasingly harder for them to make them explicit.

D

Decoding the Disciplines The double D of Decoding the Disciplines emphasizes that expertise is disciplinary in nature to a considerable extent and that important parts of it might be implicit and, hence, need to be decoded.

E

Emotional Bottleneck The Decoding the Disciplines process can lead to considerable changes in teaching. Students might act resistant to such changes. Metaphorically speaking they might get stuck in emotional bottlenecks. An integral part of the Decoding the Disciplines process is to anticipate such resistance / emotional bottlenecks in order to better cope with them.

F

Formative Feedback A core element in the Decoding the Disciplines process emphasizing that students need to practice and receive feedback.

G

General Although the focus is on decoding disciplinary knowledge Decoding the Disciplines is general in that it is applicable to any discipline.

H

How exactly do you do that? A question often asked in the course of a Decoding interview.

I

Interview The interview is a core element in the Decoding process and is the very place where expertise gets decoded.

J

JiTT Just in Time Teaching. A teaching philosophy often practiced by those engaged in Decoding the Disciplines as the identification of Bottlenecks is an intrinsic part of JiTT.

K

Knowledge Decoding acknowledges that knowledge and ways of thinking are mostly disciplinary. Decoding also acknowledges that knowledge, in particular that of experts, can be implicit.

L

Learning Improving student learning is the ultimate goal of Decoding the Disciplines. However, it is also a learning experience for the people involved.

M

Modeling A core step in the Decoding the Discipline process where instructors model their expertise to students after having decoding their expertise.

N

Novice The converse of expert. Facilitating the transition from novice to expert is what is Decoding the Disciplines is all about.

O

Others Although Decoding the Disciplines tends to focus on aspects of disciplinary expertise it brings in others from outside the discipline under investigation. These others often serve as interviewers in Decoding interviews as they are not affected by the curse of expertise in the discipline under investigation.

P

Pace & Middendorf Effectively the parents of Decoding the Disciplines.

Q

Questioning Decoding the Disciplines questions folk explanations why students do not succeed in their learning process. And it uses questioning as a strategy for decoding expertise.

R

Resolve Decoding the Desciplines resolves bottlenecks, the curse of expertise, and important aspects of disciplinary expertise.

S

Sharing Another integral part of the Decoding the Disciplines process. Students’ bottlenecks and ways to overcome them more often than not are rather universal. Hence, sharing one’s results with other teachers helps making teaching more effective on a larger scale. Decoding the Disciplines is a way of doing Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

T

Teaching This is what Decoding the Disciplines is all about: Making teaching a more meaningful and effective endeavor.

U

Unifying Decoding unifies a multiple of approaches and intellectual practices, including but not limited to coaching, collegial collaboration, research in expertise, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

V

Vetting Decoding the Disciplines endorses both meanings of vetting: The careful examination of learning obstacles and teaching interventions to make sure that they are suitable as well as providing care to students.

W

Writing as a means of Decoding Lahm developed a self-guided writing process that allows conducting the Decoding the Disciplines process without the need of an interview.

X

eXpertise The object of Decoding.

Y

Yes, we can! Mindset of people engaged in Decoding. As in “Yes, we can help students overcome bottlenecks!”

Z

Zest Decoding brings zest to those practicing it, be it a zest for teaching, a zest for learning, a zest for understanding, a zest for cooperating, a zest for research.

Bibliographic data

Peter Riegler (2019): The Decoding Alphabet, Didaktiknachrichten 11-2019