Science and Society in the Classroom: Using Sociocultural Perspec ...

these were isolated activities chosen by the teacher to explain the concepts that were presented in the textbook. These activities were designed to follow the inform, verify, and practice format most of the time and thus did not lead to meaningful understanding of scientific concepts.

There are several important implications from the study. Researchers and educators who work with science curriculum issues in school districts, as well as curriculum adopters, curriculum specialists, and science teachers, will find the implications of this study useful.

1. Prepare preservice teachers and provide professional development for in-service teachers in such a way that they have explicit experience integrating sociocultural perspectives in the science curriculum. Teacher education programs should embed lesson planning experiences that allow preservice teachers to develop and/or use existing curriculum units that integrate socioscientific issues, connected science, and/or science in contexts. The teaching of these curriculum units in the classrooms will allow future teachers to understand that science is a social endeavor. Therefore, they may be willing to transform their roles from being the disseminator of information to being someone who poses questions to stimulate student thinking in the science classroom.

2. Prepare preservice teachers and provide professional development for in-service teachers for assessing students' performance using curricula that integrate sociocultural perspectives. We need to develop appropriate assessments that allow teachers to evaluate their students' performance as well as the effectiveness of curricula guided by sociocultural perspectives. Currently, teachers are working with classroom limitations that are dictated by the pressures of standardized testing. Many teachers, therefore, feel the pressure to engage in extensive review sessions to help students succeed on these tests. We need to make sure that teachers see a strong alignment between curriculum assessment plans and the standardized tests for them to successfully enact classroom experiences guided by sociocultural perspectives.