Deeper Learning

I agree that standardized testing does not promote deeper thinking. It promotes memorization for the most part. A lesson that I feel promotes deeper learning is as follows.
The students are shown a video clip of a child sledding down a steep hill. The students are told only a few known things about the child; his mass, what his sled is made of and the angle of the slope. From this the students must come up with a step by step solution on how to find the force of friction between the snow and the sled. This is an example of constructivist learning because the students must combine different concepts in order to solve this one particular problem. A student that has only memorized facts without understanding will have a difficult time trying to solve for the force due to friction.
The importance of this lesson is that it gets the students to think through the ideas rather than just answer a simple question that they have memorized. Students learn how to take from thier prior knowledge and apply it to new concepts.