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How to decode student bottlenecks to learning in computer science (abstract only)

After thirty years or more of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) many students still struggle to learn at the university level, while ever more techniques are being developed to help students learn and measure their success. In practice, however, efforts to reshape classes begin with questions such as: "How can I make use of this new technique?" Or, "How can I increase my students' critical thinking?" Such questions are often too broad to provide a clear focal point for designing efficient strategies. They sometimes draw attention to parts of the course not in great need of reform, and generally focus the process on the means (teaching) rather than the end (student learning). A shift is taking place in higher education so that teaching is approached not from content or from the teaching methods, but from the mental processes that are crucial to functioning in a discipline. Decoding the Disciplines (Middendorf & Pace, 2004) is an evidence-based, learner-centered methodology that can conclusively improve teaching by prioritizing what really matters in making meaning in a discipline and boosting learning outcomes in the classroom. It offers a meta-strategy, providing both a framework to define the task at hand and a means to determine which tools would be most useful in accomplishing it. Starting from the bottlenecks, the places where students get stuck, and connecting them with what experts do so they won't get stuck, the crucial mental processes drive the teaching and learning so students can be successful.