Rodriguez, A.J. (1998, December). Strategies for counter-resistance: Toward sociotransformative constructivism and learning to teach science for diversity and for understanding. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 35(6), 589-622.
The above article is the fifth entry article in my annotated bibliography for my inquiry project. This article looks at how science is taught by science teachers. The author believes, as he tells us in the article, that there need to be “an alternative orientation to teaching and learning science that takes into account how social, historical, and institutional contexts influence learning and access to learning in schools” (Rodriguez, 1998, 590). Basically, the author is arguing that there need to be a transformative instruction to teach diverse students science. Hence, as he explains in his article, we need to “to teach for understanding and diversities that implement more culturally inclusive, socially relevant pedagogical strategies and more intellectually meaningful pedagogical strategies” (ibid.). This article suggests what teaching needs is a progressive instruction that links multicultural and social institutions that are seen in urban schools in science instruction. In an attempt, the author suggests a sociatransformative constructivist as the vehicle to link learning for understanding and diversities in urban schools. By using this orientation, as the author explains, “helps teachers learn to teach for diversities and understanding” (589). One problem with the article, and most studies that I have read, is the article does not provide empirical evidences or guidance about how the proposed changes can be implemented in the classroom. As a matter of fact, the author critiques such flaw in his article. As he explains in the article, “The result of the project reported here address lack of empirical evidence in the multicultural/learning-to-teach literature” (593). Looking ahead at my inquiry project, I believe I will have the same problem the author faces in the article: lack of empirical evidence for the paper because constructivism pedagogy lacks information that systematically gathers and exposes to a variety of methodology checks. As of right now, i don't know how I'll tackle or discuss such issue in my paper.
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I think the question is an interesting one, and perhaps what you should do is interview some teachers to see how they address the issues mentioned in the article in their classrooms.
One other thing I would encourage you to think about is what we term "empirical" evidence. Really strong qualitative studies that systematically collect data are also empirical. Much research on constructivism is qualitative and empirical. You also need to look at books like the Teaching Gap and the Learning Gap. The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences is also a good text to look at.
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