I guess higher order thinking skills don't matter when you work at McDonald's

[bhikkhu]

7. A little more background:

"The concept of higher order thinking skills (HOTS) became a major educational agenda item with the 1956 publication of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Within the cognitive domain of Bloom's taxonomy there are six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Higher order thinking skills are those skills in the top three levels: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These three skill levels are important in critical thinking.

There is a notion that students must master the lower level skills before they can engage in higher order thinking. However, the National Research Council objected to this line of reasoning, saying that cognitive research challenges that assumption, and that higher order thinking is important even in elementary school. [1]

Including higher order thinking skills in learning outcomes is a very common feature of standards based education reform..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_order_thinking_skills