AAAS Conference on Developing
Textbooks That Promote Science
Literacy
February 27-March 2,
2001
American Association for the Advancement
of Science
Washington, D.C.
Student-Focused Curriculum
Materials Development: The “Food
For Plants” Story
Kathleen J. Roth
Michigan State University
February 25, 2001
Appendix A
AAAS Project 2061 Biology
Textbooks Evaluation
Criteria for
Evaluating the Quality
of Instructional Support
Category I. Providing
a Sense of Purpose
Conveying unit
purpose. Does
the material convey an
overall sense of purpose
and direction that is
understandable and motivating
to students?
Conveying lesson
purpose. Does
the material convey the
purpose of each lesson
and its relationship to
others?
Justifying lesson
sequence. Does
the material involve students
in a logical or strategic
sequence of activities
(versus just a collection
of activities)?
Category II. Taking
Account of Student Ideas
Attending to
prerequisite knowledge
and skills. Does
the material specify prerequisite
knowledge/skills that
are necessary to the learning
of the benchmark(s)?
Alerting teacher
to commonly held student
ideas. Does
the material alert teachers
to commonly held student
ideas (both troublesome
and helpful) such as those
described in Benchmarks Chapter
15: The Research Base?
Assisting teacher
in identifying own students'
ideas. Does the
material include suggestions
for teachers to find out
what their students
think about familiar phenomena
related to a benchmark
before the scientific
ideas are introduced?
Addressing commonly
held ideas. Does
the material attempt to
address commonly held
student ideas?
Category III.
Engaging Students with
Relevant Phenomena
Providing variety
of phenomena. Does
the material provide multiple
and varied phenomena to
support the key idea(s)?
Providing vivid
experiences. 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?
Category IV. Developing
and Using Scientific Ideas
Building a case. Does
the material develop an
evidence-based argument
for key ideas? *
Introducing terms
meaningfully. Does
the material introduce
technical terms only in
conjunction with experience
with the idea or process
and only as needed to
facilitate thinking and
promote effective communication?
Representing
ideas effectively. Does
the material include accurate
and comprehensible representations
of key ideas?
Synthesizing
ideas over time. Does
the material provide a
logical sequence of encounters
with the key ideas and
tie them together? *
Connecting ideas. Does
the material explicitly
draw attention to appropriate
conceptual connections? *
Demonstrating
use of knowledge. Does
the material demonstrate/model
or include suggestions
for teachers on how to
demonstrate/model skills
or the use of
knowledge?
Providing practice. Does
the material provide tasks/questions
for students to practice
skills or use knowledge
in a variety of situations?
Category V. Promoting
Student Thinking about
Phenomena, Experiences,
and Knowledge
Encouraging students
to explain their ideas. Does
the material routinely
include suggestions for
having each student express,
clarify, justify, and
represent his/her ideas?
Are suggestions made for
when and how students
will get feedback from
peers and the teacher?
Guiding student
interpretation and reasoning. Does
the material include tasks
and/or question sequences
to guide student interpretation
and reasoning about experiences
with phenomena and readings?
Encouraging students
to think about what they've
learned. Does
the material suggest ways
to have students check
their own progress?
Category VI. Assessing
Progress
Aligning assessment
to goals. Assuming
a content match between
the curriculum material
and this benchmark, are
assessment items included
that match the same benchmark?
Testing for understanding. Does
the material include assessment
tasks that require application
of ideas and avoid allowing
students a trivial way
out, like using a formula
or repeating a memorized
term without understanding?
Using assessment
to inform instruction. Are
some assessments embedded
in the curriculum along
the way, with advice to
teachers as to how they
might use the results
to choose or modify activities?
Category VII.
Enhancing the Science Learning
Environment *
Providing teacher
content support. Would
the material help teachers
improve their understanding
of science, mathematics,
and technology necessary
for teaching the material? *
Encouraging curiosity
and questioning. Does
the material help teachers
to create a classroom
environment that welcomes
student curiosity, rewards
creativity, encourages
a spirit of healthy questioning,
and avoids dogmatism? *
Supporting all
students. Does
the material help teachers
to create a classroom
community that encourages
high expectations for
all students, that enables
all students to experience
success, and that provides
all students a feeling
of belonging in the science
classroom? *
*
Textbooks did not receive
a numerical rating for
these criteria; reviewers'
judgements on these
criteria will be presented
in the narrative reports
but not in the instructional
analysis charts. |
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