Decoding the disciplines – A pilot study at the University of Liège (Belgium)

This paper reports on a first attempt to apply the two first stages of the “Decoding the disciplines” framework (Pace, 2017) at the University of Liège (Belgium). In this context, 7 professors volunteered to reflect, through a structured process, upon “bottlenecks” in their courses, with the help of IFRES’ (Institute for Training and Research in Higher Education) pedagogical advisers. This pilot delivered contrasted observations: while participants granted value to their exposure to this approach, especially in terms of enhanced awareness of possible discrepancies between what experts and newcomers in the field might consider as obvious, none of them activated the possibility offered to tackle the identified bottlenecks, according to the systematic approach (stages 3-7) suggested by the framework. The paper presents the pedagogical setting, analyses the interviews of participants and the outcomes of the project, outlines explanations for its results, and shares some lessons learnt.