Creating a positive and engaging learning environment

Creating a positive and inspiring learning environment is one of the main ways to set yourself up to achieve successful outcomes. Below are some suggestions as to how to go about this:

Human comfort

Most humans can relax if they know the boundaries of their activity. Therefore in order to support your students in feeling as comfortable as possible outside you can let them know:

• Where they are, e.g. the name of the woods.
• How long they are going to be there.
• How long it will take to walk to your site.

• When they are going to have a snack or lunch.
• What they need to do if they need the toilet.

Inspiration

Creating an inspiring environment can mean different things to different people and this might need to be adapted depending on the activity or local geography.

If you have to deliver an activity that isn’t really your thing, find something within it that is. For instance, if you aren’t really a mini-beast fan but love plants, how about looking at how plants attract mini-beasts and how mini-beasts adapt to this (e.g. they can only see red colours or they have a long proboscis to get to nectar).

Involve and engage straight away,

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn”

Confucian philosopher Xun Kuang

There are various theories on the successful methodologies of learning. Flanagan, a developmental psychologist, says that we retain only 30% of what we hear, remember 60% of what we do and 90% of what we read, hear, see, say and do! Therefore, creating a positive and inspiring learning environment needs to engage the participant’s on a range of levels from the beginning of the session.  A key point to remember is:  Teach (talk) less and share more

“Take a walk in their shoes”

This is probably one of the most important ways you can create a positive learning environment. Ask yourself “If I was seven years old, four-foot-six tall and visiting the woods for the first time, what would I like, be excited about, be scared of and be tall enough to see (e.g. is there lots of five-foot bracken everywhere)?”. Then you can start writing your session plans from this child or children’s point of view.

Identify barriers to learning

Do you have someone in your group trying to manage their dyslexia, or are they hard of hearing, lacking sleep or suffering a recent bereavement? There can often be several barriers to learning, and getting as much information about your clients as possible before you plan your session will help manage these barriers. Communicating and building a rapport with your group during your session will also help you identify what these barriers are and build positive relationships.

 Once you have this information you can then plan your session incorporating these needs, thereby creating the best possible outcomes for all.

Activities to engage the senses

There are many activities to help engage the senses. Joseph Cornell’s book Sharing Nature with Children, or the books of Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks have detailed examples of such activities. (see resources).

When choosing sensory games remember Joseph Cornell’s flow learning, i.e. if the children have just got off the bus and arrived in the woods, a sitting down and listening game might not be the most appropriate.

Evaluating your session

At the end of your session it is important that you evaluate your session, including your personal performance, with your group. You can do this in a variety of ways:

Verbally: Ask the children to say what they remember from their session, what they liked the most and what they liked the least.

Physically: Ask the children to run and touch a silver birch tree if they learnt something new in their woodland adventure or a Scots pine if they didn’t learn anything.

Written: Give the students a feedback form to fill in, ideally one that is easy to complete.

After your session, it is also important to assess how you did against your learning objectives and to evaluate your personal performance. What did you think worked, what didn’t and what would you like to do better next time?  It is good practice to write down any first aid incidents on your evaluation form, and record in an accident record book.