Interconnection between Physical Environment and Pedagogical Process in Elementary Schools in Nis, Serbia

The connection between the pedagogical process and certain spatial characteristics of elementary schools, as a designed and constructed physical environment is studied. By observing the school premises as a complex dynamic field, the starting hypothesis is that the appropriate physical environment model is derived based on the needs and activities of school children and teachers in the pedagogical process. The physical environment factors that may affect the quality of modern pedagogical process are defined by systematizing specificities of analysed categories, logic factorization and conducted questionnaire and by mapping key attitudes on the existing space of elementary schools. The factors are: the functional organization of elementary school space, its structure, size, extensibility, mobility, flexibility and (dis)continuity. Implementation of these factors in the design of elementary schools aims to create a physical environment that offers a range of transitional forms of the realization of different activities in the pedagogical process.