I.1 Conveying Unit Purpose: Does the material convey an overall sense of purpose and direction that is understandable and motivating to students?

I.2 Conveying Lesson Purpose: Does the material convey the purpose of each activity or lesson and its relationship to others?

I.3 Justifying Sequence of Activities: Does the material involve students in a logical or strategic sequence of activities (versus a collection of activities) that build toward understanding of the ideas in the unit or chapter purpose?

II.1 Specifying Prerequisite Knowledge. Does the material specify and address prerequisite knowledge/skills that are necessary to the learning of the benchmark?

II.2 Alerting Teacher to Student Ideas. Does the material alert teachers to commonly held student ideas (both troublesome and helpful)?

II.3 Assisting Teacher in Identifying Ideas. Does the material include suggestions for teachers to find out what their students think about familiar situations related to a benchmark before the ideas are introduced?

II.4 Addressing Misconceptions. Does the material explicitly address commonly held student ideas?

III.1 Providing Variety of Contexts. Does the material provide experiences in multiple, different contexts?

III.2 Providing Firsthand Experiences. Does the material include activities that promote firsthand experiences with the benchmark ideas, when practical?

IV.1 Justifying Importance of Benchmark Ideas. Does the material suggest ways to help students develop a sense of the importance and validity of concepts or procedures?

IV.2 Introducing Terms and Procedures. Does the material introduce terms and procedures only in conjunction with experience with them and only as needed to facilitate thinking and promote effective communication?

IV.3 Representing Ideas Accurately. Does the material include accurate and comprehensible representations of concepts, procedures, and relationships?

IV.4 Connecting Benchmark Ideas. Does the material explicitly draw attention to appropriate connections among benchmark ideas?

IV.5 Demonstrating/Modeling Procedures. Does the material demonstrate/model (or include suggestions for teachers on how to demonstrate/model) skills or the use of knowledge?

IV.6 Providing Practice. Does the material provide tasks or questions for students to practice skills or use knowledge in a variety of situations?

V.1 Encouraging Students to Explain Their Reasoning. Does the material routinely include suggestions for having each student express, clarify, justify, and represent his/her ideas and how to get feedback from peers and the teacher?

V.2 Guiding Interpretation and Reasoning. Does the material include tasks and/or question sequences that guide student interpretation and reasoning about benchmark concepts, skills, and relationships?

V.3 Encouraging Students to Think about What They’ve Learned. Does the material suggest ways to have students check their own progress?

VI.1 Aligning Assessment. Are assessment items or tasks included that match the ideas, concepts, or skills of the benchmark?

VI.2 Assessment through Applications. Does the material include assessment tasks that require application of benchmark ideas, concepts, or skills and avoid allowing students a trivial way out, like using a formula or repeating a memorized term, date, fact, or rule without understanding?

VI.3 Using Embedded Assessment. 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?

VII.1 Providing Teacher Content Support. Does the material help teachers improve their understanding of the discipline and its applications?

VII.2 Establishing a Challenging Classroom. Does the material help teachers to create a classroom environment that welcomes student curiosity, rewards creativity, encourages a spirit of healthy questioning, and avoids rigidity?

VII.3 Supporting All Students. Does the material help teachers to create a classroom that encourages high expectations for all students, enables all students to experience success, and provides all students a feeling of belonging in the classroom?