represent his/her ideas? Are suggestions made for when and how students will get feedback from peers and the teacher?

Reflecting on activities. Does the material include tasks and/or question sequences to guide student interpretation and reasoning about phenomena and activities?

Reflecting on when to use knowledge and skills. Does the material help or include suggestions on how to help students know when to use knowledge and skills in new situations?

Self-monitoring. Does the material suggest ways to have students check their own progress and consider how their ideas have changed and why?

Cluster VI, Assessing Progress. There are several important reasons for monitoring student progress toward specific learning goals. Having a collection of alternatives can ease the creative burden on teachers and increase the time available to analyze student responses and make adjustments in instruction based on them. This cluster includes criteria for whether the material includes a variety of goal-relevant assessments.

Alignment to goals. Assuming a content match of the curriculum material to this benchmark, are assessment items included that match the content?

Application. 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?

Embedded. 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?

Cluster VII, Enhancing the Learning Environment. Many other important considerations are involved in the selection of curriculum materials — for example, the help they provide teachers in encouraging student curiosity and creating a classroom community where all can succeed, or the material's scientific accuracy or