Stylus Publishing (VA) Overcoming Student Learning Bottlenecks: Decode the Critical Thinking of Your Discipline

Review "As a practical resource to support post-secondaryteaching, Overcoming Student Learning Bottlenecks sets the bar high. Forone, the book exemplifies the central tenets of SoTL scholarship. It revolvesaround a compelling theoretical framework for teaching and learning, reliesupon rigorous research methods, focuses squarely on student learning, and aimsto make the often private practice of teaching public. For another, the bookpackages these elements with concrete strategies for engaging in the decodingprocess drawn from the authors' experiences in the classroom and in runningprofessional development workshops. In this regard, Middendorf and Shopkow leadthe way in possibly setting a new standard for the field as a how-to reference.The authors go beyond just sharing examples of ambitious, scholarly teaching toprovide research-based tools for supporting faculty to take up such teaching, and they go beyond simply sharing examples of their classroom practice toprovide instructional activities for scaffolding the sharing process andcollaborative work for other faculty.Overcoming Student Learning Bottlenecks, moreover, provides curriculum and instruction resources in easy-to-useformats. The flexibility and accessibility of the framework allows for facultyto engage in different stages of decoding based upon their particular interestsand needs. Further, the activities featured in the book are general enough tobe applied to various subject areas and adapted for specific classroomcontexts. Finally, the book's primary instructional practices-modeling, guidedpractice, and formative assessment-are of a manageable grain size. The authorsare not suggesting that faculty embark on a complete overhaul of theirteaching. Rather, these are practices meant to supplement more traditionalforms of post-secondary instruction (i.e., lecturing). The decoding process isnot an all-or-nothing proposition, which should increase its appeal to facultyjust starting, or hesitant, to engage in this work.[This book]provides an importanttheoretical synthesis and practical handbook for the Scholarship of Teachingand Learning."--Teachers College Record ".""Middendorf and Shopkow provide an accessible and long-needed volume that speaks to both faculty and professional developers. Drawing on their expansive experiences and research, they articulate a wide range of contexts for applying the decoding methodology to strengthen faculty's epistemological underpinnings, transform teaching and learning, and inform strategies for curricular development. This valuable resource is accessible across disciplinary, institutional, and international contexts."--Kathy Takayama, Director, Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning Through Research "Northeastern University""Over a decade of investigation by the authors and their colleagues has been synthesized to produce this step-by-step guide to decoding the disciplines, a technique that has a relentless focus on improved student learning. We, as teachers, are given detailed signposts and 'how-to' pathways so that we can help students to navigate bottlenecks to learning. In doing so we unlock our own learning and deepen our own understanding of our disciplines. This book is a valuable resource for those trying 'decoding' for the first time, as well as for those who have begun and want to develop their practice further. The authors rightly situate decoding in the context of other pedagogical ideas and concepts, noting the differences and commonalities, and allowing the reader to develop a broad understanding of how students learn. The examples and templates are particularly useful."--Bettie Higgs, Senior Fellow, Teaching and Learning "University College Cork, Ireland"Learning can be hard, and one of the beauties of the decoding the disciplines process described in this new volume is its respect for the real difficulties students face as they encounter unfamiliar ideas and mental models. With those difficulties--or bottlenecks-