One of the most important of the six key principles of education promoted by Ernest Leroy Boyer was the principle of purposefulness. His belief in this principle was key in many of the system wide changes that occurred in education from elementary school levels through to colleges and universities.
One of the most important changes proposed in purposeful education is that students and faculty have to be working together on commonly defined educational goals. The students have to be actively involved in developing those goals and everyone from parents through to administrators also have to be working together. In higher education settings such as colleges and universities students need to be part of the educational and learning community rather than simply passive participants in training programs.
Other aspects of a purposeful education include developing thematic type of learning rather than learning specific data and information in isolate. This was relatively radical compared to the very compartmentalized teaching traditionally provided in higher education classes. Research, completed through the Carnegie Foundation, American Council on Education and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators in supported this theory in the 1990 publication “Campus Life in Search of Community”.
Another aspect of purpose that was deemed important by Dr. Boyer was the use of out-of-class learning opportunities and the recognition by faculty of the importance of these activities. Community service hours and credits for work within specific areas of the community was and still is an essential component of purposeful education.
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