ABSTRACT
State standards are typically designed with the intent of deepening student learning, incorporating application of complex skills and higherorder thinking, and fostering acquisition of knowledge drawn from rich experiences and profound understandings that are integrated across multiple content areas. To accomplish this, instruction in our classrooms will necessarily shift, with learning experiences becoming more heavily dependent on meaningful interactions, both with content and with people. Classroom activities will rely less on lecture and more on pedagogies such as academic service-learning, project-based learning, and inquiry-based learning. When done well, these pedagogies are particularly effective in developing the critical higher-level skills that cut across all standards, such as synthesis and analysis, problem solving, making inferences, and communication.
