Kuo Ming, Browning Matthew H E M, Penner Milbert L
Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, United States.
Recreation, Sport and Tourism, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, United States.
Front Psychol. 2018 Jan 4;8:2253. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02253. eCollection 2017.
Teachers wishing to offer lessons in nature may hold back for fear of leaving students keyed up and unable to concentrate in subsequent, indoor lessons. This study tested the hypothesis that lessons in nature have positive-not negative-aftereffects on subsequent classroom engagement. Using carefully matched pairs of lessons (one in a relatively natural outdoor setting and one indoors), we observed subsequent classroom engagement during an indoor instructional period, replicating these comparisons over 10 different topics and weeks in the school year, in each of two third grade classrooms. Pairs were roughly balanced in how often the outdoor lesson preceded or followed the classroom lesson. Classroom engagement was significantly better after lessons in nature than after their matched counterparts for four of the five measures developed for this study: teacher ratings; third-party tallies of "redirects" (the number of times the teacher stopped instruction to direct student attention back onto the task at hand); independent, photo-based ratings made blind to condition; and a composite index each showed a nature advantage; student ratings did not. This nature advantage held across different teachers and held equally over the initial and final 5 weeks of lessons. And the magnitude of the advantage was large. In 48 out of 100 paired comparisons, the nature lesson was a full standard deviation better than its classroom counterpart; in 20 of the 48, the nature lesson was over two standard deviations better. The rate of "redirects" was cut almost in half after a lesson in nature, allowing teachers to teach for longer periods uninterrupted. Because the pairs of lessons were matched on teacher, class (students and classroom), topic, teaching style, week of the semester, and time of day, the advantage of the nature-based lessons could not be attributed to any of these factors. It appears that, far from leaving students too keyed up to concentrate afterward, lessons in nature may actually leave students more able to engage in the next lesson, even as students are also learning the material at hand. Such "refueling in flight" argues for including more lessons in nature in formal education.
希望开设自然课程的教师可能会有所顾虑，担心这会让学生过于兴奋，从而无法在随后的室内课程中集中注意力。本研究检验了这样一个假设：自然课程对随后的课堂参与度有积极而非消极的后续影响。我们精心匹配了成对的课程（一节在相对自然的户外环境中进行，另一节在室内进行），在室内教学期间观察随后的课堂参与度，在学年中的10个不同主题和星期里，在两个三年级教室中分别重复进行这些比较。户外课程与室内课程的先后顺序大致保持平衡。对于本研究制定的五项衡量标准中的四项，自然课程后的课堂参与度明显优于其匹配的对照课程：教师评分；“重新引导”的第三方统计（教师停止教学以将学生注意力重新引导到手头任务上的次数）；对课程条件不知情的基于照片的独立评分；以及综合指数均显示出自然课程的优势；学生评分则未显示出优势。这种自然课程的优势在不同教师中都存在，并且在课程的最初5周和最后5周中同样明显。而且优势的程度很大。在100对比较中，有48对自然课程比其室内对照课程整整高出一个标准差；在这48对中的20对里，自然课程比其室内对照课程高出两个以上标准差。自然课程后，“重新引导”的次数几乎减少了一半，使教师能够不间断地授课更长时间。由于成对的课程在教师、班级（学生和教室）、主题、教学风格、学期周数和一天中的时间等方面进行了匹配，基于自然的课程的优势不能归因于这些因素中的任何一个。看来，自然课程远不会让学生过于兴奋而无法在之后集中注意力，实际上可能会让学生更有能力参与下一节课，即使学生也在学习手头的材料。这种“飞行中加油”的情况表明，在正规教育中应增加更多的自然课程。
