Teachers were designated as more and less effective according to their ability to teach specially constructed reading and mathematics curriculum units over two weeks. They were then studied to determine if their perceptions of classroom interaction and interactive decision making were different. They were also studied to determine whether they notice different aspects of teaching when viewing instruction by another teacher. Pupils were also studied to determine what aspects of instruction were salient to them. Four variables related to the teachers' thinking about instruction were found worthy of further study. These were the teachers' (a) logical/critical thinking; (b) comparative thinking; (c) negative thinking, and (d) amount of input accepted or sought during interactive decision making. In particular, teachers with high pupil gain scores tended to emphasize cognitive aspects of the lesson more, while teachers with low pupil gain scores gave slightly more attention to affective aspects of the lesson. The most salient instructional characteristics for students were cognitive events, not affective events. (Author/JD)