Creating an active learning environment. The third strategy relevant to the design of instruction for culturally-diverse students is the creation of an active learning environment. This strategy is based on what we know about the social construction of knowledge. Students being the social beings that they are learn better through interaction. This interaction allows students to draw from experiences, past and present, and brings them together to construct meaning that is useful and relevant.
Many students suffer from an instructional strategy that is all too common in classrooms.
Instruction involves presenting students with limited facts and concepts and then asking them to memorize those facts and give them back to the teacher. In this case, students have not been provided with opportunities to construct meaning from comprehensible input. Daily activities consist primarily of assigning activities, monitoring to be sure students are on task and then grading these activities. This recitation model can be contrasted with a different view of teaching based on the work of Vygotsky. Vygotsky and his followers theorize that learning is not the result of isolated, individual activity but is based on social interaction.