an innovative approach

The development of constructivist approach is based on an awareness of the
social and cultural world influencing student learning in classroom. The approach
helps development of more effective teaching strategies. Teaching should know not
only what is being acquired in the culture of science, but also how it relates to what
students have already learned about their own society and the everyday culture of
their society in general – family, community and environment. What follows,
explores this more fully, namely, the interpretation and application of socio-cultural
theory as it might underpin the understanding and facilitating of teaching and learning
about photosynthesis.
Socio-Cultural Influences on Teaching Photosynthesis
1. Overviews: Emerging Socio-cultural Perspectives
Socio-cultural perspectives are concerned with the ways of thinking about
human learning (Cobb, 1994; Cobb and Yackel, 1996; John-Steiner and Mahn, 1996;
Marshall, 1996; Packer and Goicoechea, 2000). Two social perspectives which
underpin the science teaching/learning areas are being debated (Alfred, 2002). The
first, an epistemological perspective, focuses initially on the situated nature of
knowledge construction by the individual. However, Vygostsky’s social
constructivist theory emphasized that learning occurs within a particular social world
(Rogoff, 1990; Wertsch and Kanner, 1992). Therefore, a shift from focusing on the
individual to the interactions within a larger social context occurs. The second, an
ontological perspective places less emphasis on knowing and more on being. It holds
that the individual’s learning cannot be considered in any way to be context-free. The
learning always relates to being part of a society and a culture (Cobb and Yackel,
1996; John-Steiner and Mahn, 1996; Marshall, 1996; Packer and Goicoechea, 2000;
Alfred, 2002).
In Vygotskian social constructivism human knowledge construction involves
the interdependence between the individual and social processes (John-Steiner and
Mahn, 1996). Students learn through “the transmission of culture from one
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