Learning Environment
E. Zarghami; S. M. Behrooz
Abstract
Background and Objective: Interdisciplinary scientific perspectives define learning as part of the individual’s process of shaping physiology, morphology and behavior within the boundary of organism’s biological nature, to adjust the environment, which in premodren childhood occurs through ...
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Background and Objective: Interdisciplinary scientific perspectives define learning as part of the individual’s process of shaping physiology, morphology and behavior within the boundary of organism’s biological nature, to adjust the environment, which in premodren childhood occurs through play, exploration and participation in socially meaningful contexts over an extended period of immaturity. This type of learning has become subordinate to the official schooling these days.In the past, children spent most of their free time outdoors; this time was spent on activities in informal spaces, without control and in other words, unstructured. These spaces in ancestral life (before the advent of agriculture and settling down) were of ancestral nature and then the neighborhood environment, that were an important place for children to play throughout history and around the world. However, children today spend most of their free time indoors, and most of their outdoor time on scheduled and structured activities. This routine has led to physical and emotional problems such as body imbalance, type 2 diabetes, obesity and a sense of loneliness. The development of brain neural system occurs in the early years of childhood through movement and stimulation, indicating the importance of children's experiences, activities, and daily interactions for their physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent of children's natural learning opportunities in environments with varying degrees of urbanization.Methods: By means of Gibson’s affordances concept, using the affordance taxonomy of Heft-Kytta on 10–12-year-old children in metropolitan, urban, semi-urban/rural and rural communities, through questionnaires and Analysis of variance in 2018.Findings: Significant differences were observed among the communities in affordance availability, in the level of affordances actualization, in the distribution of affordances within the categories of the taxonomy, and also the location of the affordances, whether they were at home, in the yard, in immediate surroundings or elsewhere.Conclusion:Children's natural and everyday learning occurs through environmental provision. In the environments of human’s past history, children had a great deal of freedom to use existing natural elements and features, while intertwined in the daily social and work relationships of their neighborhood. However, in today's urbanized environments, both children's freedom has diminished, and those elements and natural features have become inaccessible (or, in other words, carefully removed from everyday life), and the environment of social and work interactions has distanced them from their place of residence. The results of this study testified to the severity of these three events, especially in metropolitan areas. This decrease was especially evident for exercise equipment, detachable hand objects, slippery, climbing, hanging, and height-changing features. Based on the findings and their interpretations, it is suggested that children have adequate access to messy spaces, various spatial fixed and loose elements, to have learning chances.
Learning Environment
S.M. Behrooz; E. Zarghami
Abstract
Background and Objective:The child's healthy development is the path to achieving the necessary abilities to guide him to adulthood and participation in the mature life of the society. Child development includes biological, psychological, and emotional changes that occur from birth to adolescence. Neuronal ...
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Background and Objective:The child's healthy development is the path to achieving the necessary abilities to guide him to adulthood and participation in the mature life of the society. Child development includes biological, psychological, and emotional changes that occur from birth to adolescence. Neuronal pathways in the brain develop in childhood through the movement and stimulation of the senses, indicating the importance of daily experiences, social interaction, and physical activity of young children for their socio-emotional, physical, and linguistic development. More than half of the world's population now lives in urban areas. In the past, children spent most of their free time outdoors; this time was spent on activities in informal spaces, without monitoring and, in other words, unstructured. These spaces in ancestral life were the pure ancestral nature and the neighborhood, which has been an important place for children to play throughout the history all across the world. Yet, today's children spend most of their free time indoors, and most of their time outdoors in scheduled and structured activities. Children’s opportunities to have free and independent experience (the main prerequisite of natural learning) in outdoor space have declined in urban environments. Former research acknowledges the role of parents’ perception of safety. On the other hand, large cities have witnessed an unprecedented isolation from natural elements and processes. In this study, 3 to 12 years old children’s behavior was mapped in a Kavikonj Nature School, and the results were elaborated with staff interviews. Methods:. The behavior observation method was combined with the mapping of the GIS map to create a database of environment-behavior interactions that is directly related to spatial patterns. The initial stage included initial site observations to examine the main areas of observation and view of all sections of the site. Based on this, the site was divided into several areas for viewing, to make sure that each round of observations includes all sections of the site. Detailed data collection included systematic observations of all sections of the site in multiple and different situations. The observer observed all the desired ranges, which was in fact a 9-minute visual scan of all ranges. These observations were supplemented by additional data, including children's names, the intensity of their activity (static, moderate, and severe), and the elements involved in children's behavior. Weather conditions - temperature, wind, humidity, and sunlight - were recorded for each observation round. Then, to better understand children's behavior and interpret observations, a group-foused interview was conducted with six facilitators (the most experienced) at school. Findings: Our observations revealed some patterns of children’s behavior; while interviews revealed that children’s “imagination” is the foremost driver of their spatial choices and movements. We argue that children’s right to their everyday spaces should be acknowledged based on their own natural rhythms. Conclusion: Early findings suggest that the immediate spaces of "home" or "representation of the home," which we call "extension of the house," are of great importance to young children, where they spend most of their time and return many times during their long journeys. Further findings could help our knowledge of the environmental aspects of children's motor development. In addition, these findings will provide implications for the design of children's centers, and more importantly, housing in which children live, and are supposed to be the main source of community sense for them to make friends and establish their first true social connections.
