Teachers often lack the procedural knowledge needed to manage a classroom where collaboration and scientific inquiry are emphasized. To combat this problem, a great deal of educational research has been devoted to the goal of identifying what makes an effective classroom manager. The Science Management Observation Protocol (SMOP) synthesizes this research into an assessment tool that can be used to conduct structured observations of practice. SMOP allows an observer to focus on specific teacher behaviors and classroom characteristics that influence how well an inquiry-based classroom is managed. The protocol supplies teachers with objective data that they can use to make decisions and initiate changes that will make them better managers of inquiry-based classrooms.