John Hattie states the art of great teaching is knowing when to go from surface to deep learning i.e. moving from knowing ‘stuff’ to being able to link ‘the stuff’ together and use it to solve more complex problems.
One strategy to use is think hard questions where teachers consider the most challenging content prior to the lesson (when planning) and pre plan think hard questions that challenge students to think for themselves in relation to these or find out the answers independently.