What set of criteria should be used when evaluating science programs like FOSS?
This one has a long answer and a short answer. Actually, it has one answer that requires a lot of work on your part, and one that relies on other resources. First, you can establish your own set of criteria by condensing a vision, a concept, and a set of goals and objectives out of the important science education documents of the day, specifically the NSES, Benchmarks, and your state science framework. The document that you produce can be transformed into a checklist. From there it is a matter of reviewing programs and evaluating them in the light of your criteria. The shorter version invites you to take advantage of the work of others. The National Research Council has produced a document available on-line called Selecting Instructional Materials A Guide for K 12 Science, 1999. One word of caution: Checklists and charts, with single-word or short-phrase entries, are only as good as the users’ understanding of what the phrase stands for. For instance, if the word “integrated” is one of
