Welcome to the Decoding the Disciplines Wiki

Decoding the Disciplines is a process for increasing student learning by narrowing the gap between expert and novice thinking. Beginning with the identification of bottlenecks to learning in particular disciplines, it seeks to make explicit the tacit knowledge of experts and to help students master the mental actions they need for success in particular courses.

This wiki is intended to foster student learning by...

• sharing comprehensive information on students' difficulties (a.k.a. bottlenecks)

• bringing together people engaged in Decoding the Disciplines
• making accessible research data and media used in and for scholarly work on Decoding the Disciplines by adding citations of books, articles and papers to the Decoding bibliography

• providing information on how to practice Decoding the Disciplines

Learn how to contribute, engage, and share your work and to join the Decoding community.

Featured Decoding Work Five phases which commence group work Group activities are an integral part of teaching. Often they consist of tasks given to students in order to work on them collectively. However, it cannot be assumed that students consciously or subconsciously perform operations that allow them to get started with problem solving in group tasks (Full article ...) Did you know? When mathematicians think of limits, "approaching" has a very nuanced meaning - an amalgam of "dancing" and "getting closer."

Upcoming Events Nov 1-2, 2024: Decoding the Disciplines Conference, Bloomingtion, Indiana For future and past events see Events. Featured Bottlenecks Scope of formula: When using a mathematical formula students don’t check whether the prerequisites for the applicability of this formula apply. Students have difficulties distinguishing images like paintings from what they depict. Watch an instructor explaining this bottleneck "Artifice in representation." Students find it difficult to view Home as a constructed ideal. See also the list of bottlenecks collected in this wiki. Featured Publication How many sources do I need? is an award wining paper by Leah Shopkow. It covers the bottleneck of identifying sources for a History paper.