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Hi Marsha--

Hmmm. Does your administrator base his comment on what he observed in your classes? I worked with a principal who used to ask 'Are you teaching today, or are the students just doing a lab?' He apparently equated teaching with lecturing/presentations. One day when he asked that I said that I would be teaching my head off that day. He came in during an investigation students were doing with earthworms. They were totally engaged and interested in what they were doing. He looked a little puzzled at first, but afterward he spoke to me with chagrin--'This was the best lesson I've seen. I can see how the kids were learning.'

So if your admin has never been in the classroom for an entire class to see what goes on, I would invite him. If he has observed a lab class and still wants more 'wow,' I'd ask him what a rubric for wow-ness looks like and examples. In his defense, perhaps his own experience as a student was in a class where the science teacher did lots of spectacular demonstrations while the students watched. 

Mary B

My comment on a wow-ness rubric, I admit, was a little snarky. But a larger question is how do we know when students are engaged in an activity. The teacher could do a dramatic demonstration with sparks and noise, but unless it is part of a larger lesson on a topic-- e.g., to raise a question or demonstrate a discrepant event-- it's just another classroom event without context. When students are engaged, they reflect on what they're doing, connect it with previous experiences, and see a new pattern or relationship. That's why I really like the NGSS strand of cross-cutting concepts -- a true source of wow moments!