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The students in one classroom are prompted to recall facts and procedures while the students in the other classroom are encouraged to apply their learned knowledge to solve complex problems featuring real-world relevance.

Through his work with the business community, he has learned that there is no shortage of employees that are technically proficient, but too few employees that can adequately communicate and collaborate, innovate and think critically. So, rather than simply equating 21st century skills with technical prowess, educators need to expand their understanding of such skills to increasingly emphasize preparing students to think on their feet, communicate effectively and value the ideas of others.

The depth-of-knowledge levels of Norman Webb’s depthof-knowledge (DOK) levels constitute a system that addresses how to teach these skills. Depth of knowledge is a scale of cognitive demand that reflects the complexity of activities that teachers ask students to perform. DOK-1. Recall — Recall or recognition of a fact, information, concept, or procedure DOK-2. Basic Application of Skill/Concept — Use of information, conceptual knowledge, follow or select appropriate procedures, two or more steps with decision points along the way, routine problems, organize/ display data DOK-3. Strategic Thinking — Requires reasoning, developing a plan or sequence of steps to approach problem; requires some decision making and justification; abstract and complex; often more than one possible answer DOK-4. Extended Thinking — An investigation or application to real world; requires time to research, think, and process multiple conditions of the problem or task; non-routine manipulations, across disciplines/content areas/multiple sources Level 1 of DOK is the lowest level and requires students to recall or perform a simple process.As DOK increases toward the highest (fourth) level, the complexity of the activity moves from simple recall problems to increasingly difficult and teacher independent problem-solving classroom activities, as well as real-world applications.As students are prompted to work within the realms of higher DOK levels, they will learn to independently employ higher-level thinking skills.