TOPIC 6: Promotion of Purposive Learning

Try this!

TAKE A POSE: Picture out your previous classroom (either elementary or high school days) and focus
on how learning takes place (NOTE: Focus on one). Determine if the environment supports purposive learning
by checking ( ) the box that corresponds what you have observed in your class.

YES NO
The learning environment promotes respect by giving you and other
students opportunities to listen to each other.
You were provided with avenues to observe and practice a skill.
All experiences are considered learning experiences.
You were given opportunities to collaborate with each other.
The teacher uses other strategies aside from lecture to help the students
understand the lesson.
Source: Field Study 1 – A Guide for 21st Century Student Teachers (Pawilen, et.al.,2019)

Think ahead!

1. How did your teacher promote learning in the classroom?

2. How did this form of learning help you?

3. What should the teacher do in order to promote learning?

Read and Ponder

Teachers should always remember that learning is purposive and that students are constantly learning.
Students learn when they observe. As, students observe, they form mental representations of expectations,
processes, and consequences of their actions. Therefore, teachers should provide students with opportunities to
observe a behaviour or a task. Have a learning environment that provide avenues for students to observe for this
kind of informal learning allows students to form cognitive maps that enable them to make a mental
representation of a specific situation, discover the behaviour that is appropriate for that situation, and perform
the expected outcomes.

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 Edward Chance Tollman, an American psychologist and a professor of psychology, was able to find out
that humans are constantly learning with or without motivation or reinforcement. He also promoted the concept
known as latent learning which states that learning is only manifested when the right conditions are given.
Thus, propelling students’ behavior to learn becomes purposive in an ideal learning environment.

See if you can do this!

TEACHER’S PURPOSE: As a would-be teacher in the field, what are the things that you should do to
encourage purposive learning? Suggest the best thing that you can do (try to be more specific as possible) by
filling-out the table below.

As a would-be teacher, for I will… Like… So that…

me to… (How is this done?) (Cite an example.) (How will this help?)
  
… support purposive
learning

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