By Dave Tupper

As the school year winds down, many middle school science teachers find themselves thinking about what they didn't quite get to: the unit they had to shorten, the investigation that needed one more day, or the assessment they wanted to revise but were never quite happy with. You know the drill. Teaching has a way of leaving us with a mental "next year" folder that is somehow always overflowing.

This issue’s theme, “Cell-ebrations,” offers a useful reminder: growth is not only measured by what we finished, it should also be measured by what students were able to do more confidently by the end of the year.

Maybe students asked sharper questions about a phenomenon. Maybe they revised a model after looking at new evidence. Maybe they moved from “because I think so” to “my evidence shows…” in their writing and discussions. Maybe a student who rarely spoke in August was leading a small-group conversation in May. These are the moments worth noticing and celebrating. 

In our journey to develop NGSS-aligned classrooms, some of the most meaningful wins are not always the loudest or easiest to capture in a gradebook. They often appear in the ways students engage in the Science and Engineering Practices: asking questions, analyzing data, constructing explanations, designing solutions, and arguing from evidence. These are not “extra” parts of science learning. They are the science learning.

This is one reason the CASE NGSS Committee has been thinking deeply about how educators, site leaders, and district leaders notice science instruction. The committee is working on a walkthrough tool designed to support shared learning around NGSS-aligned, student-centered science teaching. Importantly, the purpose is not to rate or evaluate teachers, score lessons, or determine effectiveness from a brief classroom visit. A wall of people with clipboards and checklists isn’t the answer. 

Instead, the goal is to help schools collect descriptive evidence about what students and teachers are doing, notice patterns over time, and use those patterns to support professional learning. In a short visit, an observer might notice students discussing ideas with partners, analyzing a data table, adding to a model, using a sentence frame to support evidence-based writing, or explaining how their evidence connects to a claim. While one snapshot does not tell the whole story of a classroom or site, multiple snapshots, gathered thoughtfully across classrooms, can help a school or district better understand the science learning experiences students are receiving.

That distinction matters. When walkthroughs become evaluative, teachers understandably become guarded. When walkthroughs are framed as collaborative learning, they can help us highlight strengths, surface common needs, and identify next steps. The best use of observation evidence is not as a “gotcha”, but more as a “what can we learn together?”
For middle school science teachers, this kind of noticing can also help us reframe our own end-of-year reflection. Rather than only asking, “Did I cover everything?” we might ask:

• What practices did students strengthen this year?
• Where did students become better at making their thinking visible?
• When did students use evidence more effectively?
• What routines helped more students participate in science talk, writing, modeling, or investigation?
• What should we keep, tweak, or toss for next year?

These questions help us “cell-ebrate” with purpose. They honor the real work that happened while also keeping us focused on growth.

The NGSS Committee is continuing to refine the walkthrough tool and hopes to use the CASE Conference in November as an opportunity to gather feedback from educators and leaders across California. We are especially interested in how a tool like this can practically support teachers, administrators, coaches, and districts in recognizing strong science teaching while building a clearer picture of student-centered science learning across classrooms. 

As we close one school year and begin thinking about the next, I hope we give ourselves permission to notice the wins. Noticing these moments is not just cell-ebration; it is evidence. When we call out what is working and study it together, individual classroom successes become the starting point for stronger science learning across the system. Onward.

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