Deep knowledge 

Knowledge is deep when it concerns the central ideas or concepts of a topic, subject or KLA and when the knowledge is judged to be crucial to the topic, subject or KLA. Deep knowledge is evident when either the teacher or the students provide information, reasoning or arguments that address the centrality or complexity of a key concept or idea, or when relatively complex relations are established to other central concepts. Knowledge is shallow when it does not concern significant concepts or key ideas of a topic, subject or KLA, or when concepts or ideas are fragmented and disconnected from a central focus. Knowledge is also shallow when important ideas are treated superficially by the teacher or students, or when there is no clear focus on an important idea or concept. This superficiality can arise from trying to cover large quantities of fragmented information that results in the content covered remaining unconnected to central ideas or concepts. 

Deep understanding 

Deep understanding is evident when students demonstrate their grasp of central ideas and concepts. Students demonstrate deep understanding when they explore relationships, solve problems, construct explanations and draw conclusions in relatively systematic, integrated or complex ways. Understanding is shallow or superficial when students present ideas in a limited or narrow way. Shallow understanding is evident when students present misinformation, repeat fragmented pieces of information or routine tasks, or provide limited interpretations without making clear distinctions or demonstrating complex understandings. 

Problematic knowledge 

Knowledge is treated as problematic when it involves an understanding of knowledge not as a fixed body of information, but rather as being socially constructed, and hence subject to political, social and cultural influences and implications. Multiple, contrasting and potentially conflicting forms of knowledge are presented and recognised as constructed and open to question. Knowledge is not treated as problematic when it is presented only as fact, a body of truth to be acquired by students, or is treated as static and open to only one interpretation. 

Higher-order thinking 

Higher-order thinking requires students to manipulate information and ideas in ways that transform their meaning and implications. This transformation occurs when students combine facts and ideas in order to synthesise, generalise, explain, hypothesise or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. Manipulating information and ideas through these processes allows students to solve problems and create new (for them) meanings and understandings. When students demonstrate higher-order thinking, they may also generate unexpected concepts, ideas and products which can take the learning in new directions. Lower-order thinking occurs when students are asked to deal only with factual information or to engage in repetitive activity. Students are exposed to pre-specified knowledge ranging from simple facts and information, to more complex ideas or concepts, through instructional processes that simply transmit knowledge or require practice of procedural routines. Lower-order thinking is evident when students are asked to recall information, define, describe, identify, list, reproduce, or state given content knowledge 

Metalanguage 

Lessons high in metalanguage have high levels of talk about language and about how texts work. Teachers or students frequently take the opportunity to draw attention to particular aspects of texts (e.g. words, images, symbols) either at a key point in the lesson, or when students are obviously having difficulties in interpretation. Such discussion will often focus on pointing out how differing sentences, types of texts, discourses and other symbolic representations actually work; comparing and contrasting different texts; and showing how language and symbols can be used to construct texts, knowledge and power. Lessons low in metalanguage have no explicit talk about language and language use or about how texts work. There is an emphasis on simply doing activities, without taking time out to question the structure and function of the language. 

Substantive communication 

In classes with high levels of substantive communication there is sustained interaction about the substance of the lesson. Classes high in substantive communication have three characteristics: there is sustained interaction, the communication is focused on the substance of the lesson, the interaction is reciprocal. This element identifies the quality of communication (oral, written or symbolic) required to promote coherent shared understanding. In classes where there is little or no substantive communication, teacher-student interaction typically takes the form of the teacher delivering information and asking routine questions and the students giving very short answers. Discussion tends to follow the typical “initiate–respond–evaluate” (IRE) pattern with low level recall, fact-based questions, short utterances or single word responses, and further simple questions and/or teacher evaluation statements (e.g. ”yes”, “good”). This is a routine, teacher-centred pattern that requires students to “fill in the blank” or “guess what’s in the teacher’s head”.