Examining Curriculum Materials: Food For Plants

Examining Curriculum Materials: VI: Probing Student Understanding

Learning Goal: Benchmark: 5E6-8 #1: Food provides the fuel and the building material for all organisms. Plants use the energy from light to make sugars from carbon dioxide and water. This food can be used immediately or stored for later use.

Name of material: Food for Plants by Kathy Roth

Major Criterion	Indicators - What must a material do to meet the criterion?	Yes or No	Justification and Citation How does the material meet this indicator? OR Why does this material fail to meet this indicator? Be sure to give specific examples
Criterion B: Probing student 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 from the text without understanding it?	1. The material provides assessment questions and/or tasks that focus on the use of the knowledge and/or skills specified in the learning goals (for example, they ask students to apply, explain, etc).
	2. The material includes questions and/or tasks that students have not previously encountered.
	3. The material includes questions and/or tasks that students do not use the exact context in which students were taught the learning goals.
	4. The material includes assessment questions and/or tasks likely to provide evidence about whether or not students hold any commonly held student ideas that are relevant to the learning goals and described in the learning research literature.