The research is pretty definite as to the possible indicators of quality
teaching. Certain terms are used to indicate quality, but they do not.
Some of these are:
Hands on, energetic, clear, asking questions, concrete, popular, personable,
knowledgeable... The list is endless!
Most teaching is evaluated by a set of surface features. The traditional
evaluation followed the Madeline Hunter method where a lesson had to have
certain specific things such as clear objectives, closure... This meant you
had to tell the student what they will learn and how it will be evaluated,
you then tell them, and then you tell them that you told them.
But when doing inquiry, this does not apply. The students should not be
given the law first, and then verify it. Instead they model the law and
figure it out. This is consistent with the learning cycle: exploration,
concept development/term definition, appliction.
So if you are looking for how well someone is teaching you need to go below
the myriad surface features and then look at what research shows is needed.
For example before a demo were students all forced to make a prediction.
This is very important. What are the features of the questions, rather than
are there questions. Were all students engaged to answer by some means such
as written or voting response. There is actually an evaluation form, RTOP,
which predicts how well inquiry is being implemented and it lines up with
better learning. And of course in the end a good reasearch based student
evaluation is ultimate indicator.
Malcolm Wells, the original author of the Modeling method, was very quiet an
low key. Indeed his videos make him appear to be boring. I know a very
good professor who uses the research based methods to achieve high gain,
but his demeanor and appearance is quite low key. I sat in on one of his
classes and was not impressed by his energy. Yet his gain is outstanding.