Lower order thinking (LOT) occurs when students are asked to receive or recite factual information or to employ rules and algorithms through repetitive routines. As information receivers, students are given pre-specified knowledge ranging from simple facts and information to more complex concepts. Such knowledge is conveyed to students through a reading, work sheet, lecture or other direct instructional medium. Students are not required to do much intellectual work since the purpose of the instructional process is to simply transmit knowledge or to practice procedural routines. Students are in a similar role when they are reciting previously acquired knowledge; i.e., responding to test-type questions that require recall of pre-specified knowledge. More complex activities still may involve LOT when students only need to follow pre-specified steps and routines or employ algorithms in a rote fashion.

Higher order thinking (HOT) requires students to manipulate information and ideas in ways that transfer their meaning and implications. This transformation occurs when students combine facts and ideas in order to synthesize, generalize, explain, hypothesize or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. Manipulating information and ideas through these processes allows students to solve problems and discover new (for them) meanings and understandings.

When students engage in HOT, an element of uncertainty is introduced into the instructional process and makes instructional outcomes not always predictable; i.e., the teacher is not certain what will be produced by students. In helping students become producers of knowledge, the teacher’s main instructional task is to create activities or environments that allow them opportunities to engage in HOT.

Knowledge is shallow, thin or superficial when it does not deal with significant concepts or central ideas of a topic or discipline. Knowledge is also shallow when important, central ideas have been trivialized, or when it is presented as non-problematic. Knowledge is thin when students’ understanding of important concepts or issues is superficial such as when ideas are covered in a way that gives them only a surface acquaintance with their meaning. This superficiality can be due, in part, to instructional strategies such as when teachers cover large quantities of fragmented ideas and bits of information that are unconnected to other knowledge.

Evidence of shallow understanding by students exists when they do not or can not use knowledge to make clear distinctions, arguments, solve problems and develop more complex understanding of other related phenomena.

Knowledge is deep or thick when it concerns the central ideas of a topic or discipline and because such knowledge is judged to be crucial to a topic or discipline.

For students, knowledge is deep when they develop relatively complex understandings of these central concepts. Instead of being able to recite only fragmented pieces of information, students develop relatively systematic, integrated or holistic understanding. Mastery is demonstrated by their success in producing new knowledge by discovering relationships, solving problems, constructing explanations, and drawing conclusions.

In scoring this item, observers should note that depth of knowledge and understanding refers to the substantive character of the ideas that the teacher presents in the lesson, or to the level of understanding that students demonstrate as they consider these ideas. It is possible to have a lesson that contains substantively important, deep knowledge, but students do not become engaged or they fail to show understanding of the complexity or the significance of the ideas. Observers’ ratings can reflect either the depth of the teacher’s knowledge or the depth of understanding that students develop of that content.