STEP 2 in the Decoding process is to make explicit the mental operations that students must master in order to overcome specific bottlenecks in a course.  Since many of these are so automatic to instructors that they have become invisible, a systematic process of deconstructing disciplinary practice is necessary.  Below you can see suggestions on this process and examples of the process in action:

• The Decoding interview (see an example);
• Rubrics (see Middendorf, Joan and Leah Shopkow, Decoding the Disciplines: How to Help Students Learn Critical Thinking (Stylus, 2017);
• Metaphors (see Middendorf, Joan and Leah Shopkow, Decoding the Disciplines: How to Help Students Learn Critical Thinking (Stylus, 2017).