Does the material include activities that provide firsthand experiences with phenomena when practical or provide students with a vicarious sense of the phenomena when not practical?

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Indicators of meeting the criterion

1. Each firsthand experience is efficient (when compared to other firsthand experiences) and, if several firsthand experiences target the same idea, the set of firsthand experiences is efficient. (The efficiency of an experience equals the cost of the experience [in time and money] in relation to its value.)
2. The experiences that are not firsthand (e.g., text, pictures, video) provide students with a vicarious sense of the phenomena. (Please note that if the material provides only firsthand experiences, this indicator is not applicable.)
3. The set of firsthand and vicarious experiences is sufficient.

Rating Scheme
Excellent: The material meets all indicators or just indicators 1 and 3 or indicators 2 and 3, if firsthand experiences are not possible.
Satisfactory: The material includes some efficient firsthand experiences and, if several firsthand experiences target the same idea, the set of firsthand experiences is sufficient. When firsthand experiences are not practical, the material provides students with a vicarious sense of the phenomena for some of the experiences that are not firsthand.
Poor: The material includes at best only one efficient firsthand experience or provides students with a vicarious sense of one phenomenon that is not firsthand.

Reviewers should proceed as follows:

1. Identify the key ideas for which there is a content match.
2. Score the treatment of each idea that results from step a. The overall score for this criterion will be the average of the scores for each idea.

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