Transformative Instruction: A Case for Constructivism Pedagogy in Learning Biological Science in Urban Schools

As of right, until I'm told that I need to make change on the title, this will be the title of my inquiry project. The thesis, as of right now, of the paper: there need to be a transformative instruction in teaching biological science in urban high schools. Science teachers might need to shift their practices of biological science instruction to better meet the needs of their ethnically diverse students in urban schools. Science contents, in urban schools, like biological science are taught by science teachers in two types of resistances: resistance to ideological change and resistance to pedagogical change (Rodriguez, 1998, 589). Follow the leader, classrooms have diversified, science instruction needs to follow suit. Second, since science contents will become part of high-stake testings, as a result, it is important to find ways to teach science contents like biological science to urban students. Third, the paper asserts that there is an achievement gap in science in urban schools and the standard that is placed on urban students will do no good because, as Gale Seiler (2001) explains in her article Reversing the “standard” direction: Science emerging from the lives of African American students, "such approach fails to address the roles of cultural and social [institutions] play in the lives of urban students" (1000). As a result, we need to find ways to tailor biological science curriculum to the needs and interests of urban students. Furthermore, we need to find mechanisms to diminish the disparities that are seen in biological science curriculum in urban schools. I suggest the use of constructivism pedagogy as an approach to teach biological science in urban schools because: (1) this form of pedagody, as Patchen & Cox-Perton (2008) explains, "provides a means of increacing marginalized students' access to science and technological fields" (994); (2) it, as Lee et. al (2008) puts it, "contributes the emerging knowledge base on science and English language and literacy with English Language Learner (ELL) students" (733). Oh yeah, I will need to do a case study of a classroom teacher to investigate whether and how constructivism pedagody can be used as a tool to teach meaningful biological science to urban high school students.