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Diana Miculescu
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12 December 2018
Instructional Practice Reflection
Throughout my field experience, I have realized there is a need for culturally relevant
pedagogy that includes all students. To facilitate the learning and achievement of all the
culturally diverse students, equitable teaching requires educators to leave behind the practice of
pedagogy of poverty and even some traditional instructional strategies, and instead, incorporate
three-dimensional teaching and learning through disciplinary core ideas, cross-cutting concepts,
and scientific and engineering practices (Schwarz, Passmore, & Reiser, 2016). This not a simple
task, as the pedagogy of poverty may be ingrained among educators in our school systems. But,
if we choose to plan for instructional activities engaging students in scientific inquiry grounded
in natural phenomena, students will engage in scientific and engineering practices such as asking
questions and defining problems, developing and using models, planning and carrying out
investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, using mathematics and computational thinking,
constructing explanations and designing solutions, engaging in argument from evidence,
obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information (Schwarz et al., 2016). Employing
learning tasks which engage students in these practices, students will learn cross-cutting concepts
such as patterns, cause and effect, sale, proportion and quantity, systems and systems models,
energy and matter, structure and function, and stability and change (Schwarz et al., 2016). Here,
I will explain how I use three-dimensional teaching to facilitate student learning through two
investigations regarding carbon cycling through a system. Through these activities, students will
ask questions and analyze and interpret data to model and provide an evidence-based explanation
to describe the roles of photosynthesis and respiration in the cycling of matter and flow of energy
within the cell.
Diversity of students comes in many different forms; students are diverse in ethnicity,
socioeconomic status, ability, and physical disability (Settlage, Southerland, Smetan & Lottero-
Perdue, 2018). Furthermore, students are diverse in personal identities and group identities. Just
like students, science has a culture of its own. An educator teaching in an urban setting could say
the current perspective of students regarding science is that learning, or memorization of
scientific content is difficult, and concepts are facts and not relevant to their everyday lives. The
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purpose of three-dimensional learning is to encourage students to learn science by engaging in

science like a scientist would. Three-dimensional teaching and learning aligns with the nature of
science which is central to the culture of science which is empirical, creative in questions,
methods, and explanations, collaborative, tentative and open to revision (Settlage et al., 2018).
I have learned that through learning about three-dimensional teaching and instructional
practice that many educators are still primarily using traditional instructional strategies instead of
three-dimensional teaching. Traditional instructional strategies perpetuate the pedagogy of
poverty. Haberman (2010) states that good teaching, which is culturally relevant, helps “students
to see major concepts and general principles instead of isolated facts, involving students in
planning what they will be doing, constructing activities that actively involve students whether it
is in groups or real-life experiences, and revision and reflection of their work and learning”
(Haberman, 2010). Using a phenomenon to engage learners, while also providing a central focus
for a learning segment or lesson, students can create evidence-based explanations or make
predictions based on patterns of evidence and/or data. Planning learning tasks using scientific
practices through inquiry will help support student achievement of these objectives.
To introduce cellular respiration, a disciplinary core idea, students will first examine the
effect exercise has on color change of bromothymol blue solution. Students in my class are
physically active as many are involved in sports, a physical education course, or other
extracurricular activities involving physical movement. For this investigation, students will be
analyzing the pattern exhibited, a cross-cutting concept, as the number of breaths it takes to turn
bromothymol blue solution from dark blue to bright yellow changes after exercise. Through this
activity, students will analyze and interpret data, a scientific practice, to discover that carbon
dioxide in their own exhaled breath causes the bromothymol blue solution to turn yellow and the
number of breaths necessary to cause this change decreases after periods of exercise.
A challenge of creating evidence-based explanations getting students to understand that
providing data to support an explanation is only one aspect of argumentation. Generally, students
are able to analyze data and use the data as evidence for the explanation, but explanations are
supported or not supported by accepted scientific theories as well and provides a guide for how
data should be interpreted and used (Sampson, Enderle, & Grooms, 2013). To support all
students in science learning, using graphic organizers, such as a Claim-Evidence-Reasoning
chart, provides students with a structure to include all the necessary aspects of a scientific
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argument. Developing and using models is another scientific practice that can be used during an
inquiry-based learning task. A learning objective for the lesson may be to have students develop
a model, to which they revise their model over the learning segment after investigations,
obtained and evaluated information, and analyzed and interpreted data. In the second activity to
support the learning objectives, students will hypothesize how carbon dioxide cycles in an
aquarium through snails and Elodea, collect, analyze, and interpret data to construct a model
explaining the flow of carbon dioxide through plants and animals. Then, using a Claim-
Evidence-Reasoning chart to support students, they will develop an evidence-based explanation
for carbon dioxide cycling.
Another challenge of using inquiry-based learning is materials may not be available to
carry out certain sophisticated investigations. Such investigations can be altered or modified to
fit the resources available to the school. If resources are unavailable but a specific investigation
would be an appropriate and beneficial learning task, students can still plan their investigation
and the educator can provide the results or data. Providing the data will provide students with the
opportunity to analyze, interpret data, and construct a conclusion. In a web-simulation, “Carbon
Transfer through Snails and Elodea” students will determine how they will measure the level of
carbon dioxide, referring back to the introductory activity investigation bromothymol blue
solution. Then students will plan an investigation using snails, Elodea, bromothymol blue
solution, and light and dark treatment in the web-simulation.
As three-dimensional teaching and learning aligns with culturally relevant pedagogy, it
refers to only teaching and learning disciplinary core ideas, cross-cutting concepts, and scientific
and engineering practices. To further support students through culturally relevant pedagogy,
other practices with learning tasks can be used. During inquiry-based learning and other learning
tasks, collaborative groups can be used to support students in achievement of learning objectives
by providing a setting for students to explore, explain, and discuss to construct meaning of the
content (Ormrod, 2016). In addition, verbalization of content related vocabulary with other
during the activity will support student learning and long-term memory storage (Ormrod, 2016).
Cooperative grouping is another method of grouping and is more effective in supporting student
learning than whole class teaching (Colarusso, O’Rourke & Leontovich, 2017). It
heterogeneously groups students based on achievement levels to promotes individual progress of
a student as well as the group. Using this strategy, educators must be care that grouping is not
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excessive or exploitive and should monitor groups to make sure all students are benefiting from
this strategy (Ormrod, 2016). For both activities described, students will support each other in
learning by forming collaborative learning groups. In the first activity of investigating
bromothymol blue solution through exercise, students will work into groups of six students, each
responsible for a specific role in the investigation. Sometimes collaborative groups, if not
structured, could leave some students doing most of the work which leaves other students not
meeting learning objectives. By structuring collaborative learning groups by giving all members
a specific task, all students will be engaged and supported in learning. In the second activity of
investigating carbon transfer through snails and Elodea, students will work in pairs as they share
a computer. Learning through web-simulations individually may be a difficult task for some
students as not every student is technology proficient. Even technology proficient students may
have difficulty in using certain web-simulations as the user interface may not be student-friendly,
so pairing students for this activity will support them in completing the web-simulation.
Current achievement gaps between students of different demographics means there are
unequal opportunities in science in the same setting. In an urban setting, there will be a
population of students with lower reading levels or English language learners. One challenge that
occurs in science is that summative assessments are usually multiple-choice and not open ended.
While there may be numerous alternative assessments within a specific classroom, state or local
assessments are not alternative or performance assessments. Educators have no control over this,
so they must achieve two objectives. First, educators must provide equal learning opportunities
for all students, including three-dimensional teaching and learning. Second, educators must
prepare students for state and local multiple-choice assessments.
Assessments that are multiple-choice can result in a systematic misrepresentation of
achievement levels (Farenga, Joyce, & Ness, 2003). There are different reasons why multiple-
choice assessments can be a misrepresentation of achievement levels. First, English language
learners or students with lower reading levels may have difficulty in comprehending the question
or answers. Second, some students might be inclined to bubble in random answers to complete
the assessment. While students are engaging with standard content and objectives during
learning standards through scientific practices, they are assessed on content knowledge in state
and local assessments. This demonstrates that summative assessment tools are generally not
aligned to the scientific practices stated in learning standards, enough though they might align to
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the scientific content of the learning standard. In addition, assessment data from multiple-choice
assessments show little information regarding students thought process or reasoning. Most
interpretation from multiple-choice assessments will demonstrate the students’ content
knowledge. The two learning tasks I have described engage students in practices that support
student learning of disciplinary core ideas that will be assessed by state and local assessments,
even if the assessments are objective.
While state and local assessments may be multiple-choice, all other assessments of
student learning are at the educator’s discretion. The alternative format of “Carbon Transfer
through Snails and Elodea” investigation can assess student achievement of learning objectives.
Alternative assessments that can be used to assess what the students have learned and are able to
do (Settlage et al, 2018). Assessments such as portfolio assessments includes artifacts supported
with a narrative which allows educators to assess a student’s academic growth (Settlage et al.,
2018). This type of assessment also focuses on what a student can synthesize, which
demonstrates a higher level of thinking of the student, rather than focusing on lower levels of
thinking such as knowledge or comprehension (Settlage et al., 2018). Using alternative
assessments, the thought process of the students can be assessed by the evaluator, and changes in
the instruction will therefore align to specific needs of the students. Alternative assessments also
allow educators to provide valuable and constructive feedback to students, while multiple-choice
assessments only provide a numerical score. Valuable and constructive feedback will allow
students to reflect on their product, reasoning, and strengths and weakness for the assessment.
This feedback is useful to student understanding of their performance level and aligns with
culturally relevant pedagogy, as all students are supported in learning and academic
achievement. Throughout the first and second investigation, direct and timely feedback from the
educator to the students can support their achievement of learning objectives.
Assessments, formal and informal, can also inform the educator of effectiveness of the
educator and shape instruction to include instructional strategies that will support students, while
also providing evidence of instructional methods that do not support student achievement of
learning standards. The latter aspect may be difficult for educators to carry out since educators
are at many times comfortable with traditional instructional methods. Always referring to the
students’ diversity when planning will ensure that instructional strategies that work for a specific
group of students will be included. Intentional planning for learning and the evidence from
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assessments is a necessary aspect of teaching through culturally relevant pedagogy. To

implement culturally relevant pedagogy, the student planning and collection of data in “Carbon
Transfer through Snails and Elodea” investigation will act as a formative assessment. This will
inform the educator if students learned the purpose of bromothymol blue solution in detecting
carbon dioxide in the introductory activity and if students are able to plan an appropriate
investigation. When students apply what they learned in first activity to the investigation
planning of the second activity, students will better understand the results of their second
investigation leading to greater achievement in analyzing and interpreting collected data. In
addition, this assessment will provide evidence to the educator if the introductory activity
supported student learning. The post-investigation writing activity of Claim-Evidence-Reasoning
will act as the conclusion to the second investigation, supporting students in developing
evidence-based explanations. The Claim-Evidence-Reasoning writing activity will display
student thought process and reasoning in addition to knowledge content, as they must include
scientific concepts or principles that are consistent with scientific data in the explanation.
In conclusion, there is no set method for instructional strategies that will always work for
every student and every classroom. Still, the educator must facilitate learning and achievement of
all students including culturally diverse students by providing equitable teaching opportunities to
all students. By integrating three-dimensional teaching and learning through disciplinary core
ideas, cross-cutting concepts, and scientific and engineering practices with other instructional
strategies that are supported by evidence from assessments, educators can include all students in
science learning and achievement.
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References
Colarusso, R. P., & O’Rourke, C. M. (Eds.). (2017). Special education for all teachers (7th ed.).
Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.
Farenga, S., Joyce, B., & Ness, D. (2003). Balancing the equity equation: The importance of
experience and culture in science learning. Science Scope, 26(5), 12-15.
Haberman, M., (2010). The Pedagogy of Poverty versus Good Teaching. Phi Delta Kappan
92(2), 81-87. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171009200223
Ormrod, J. E. (2016). Human Learning (7th ed.). Columbus, OH: Pearson-Merrill Prentice Hall.
Sampson, V., Enderle, P., & Grooms, J. (2013). Argumentation in science education. The
Science Teacher, 80(5), 30-33.
Schwarz, C., Passmore, C., & Reiser, B. J. (2016). Helping students make sense of the world
using next generation science and engineering practices. Arlington, VA: National
Science Teachers Association.
Settlage, J., Southerland, S. A., Smetan, L., & Lottero-Perdue, P. (2018). Teaching science to
every child: Using culture as a starting point. 3rd Ed. New York, Routledge.