How to spot informal learning
14th June, 2008Informal learning appears to be something of a shy creature. Rumours abound as to its existence, but how would we recognise it when we see it? What are its identifying characteristics?
While there are many different varieties of informal learning to be spotted, there are some common defining characteristics.
Perhaps most significantly, informal learning is driven by the learner themselves. The learner is in control, deciding what to learn, when to learn and how to learn. They go at their own pace, and follow their own interests. Sometimes this might be ‘accidental’ learning - learning without realising it, or learning as a consequence of playing or socialising. At other times, it might be undertaking a series of activities or a project for personal interest.
Informal learning often happens outside the classroom, but not all learning outside the classroom is informal. When you log in to your school’s VLE from home to upload your homework, you are virtually participating in formal education, despite the home setting.
Adapting an analogy from American writer Jay Cross, formal learning is like travelling on a train. You’re with a lot of other people who are all going to the same place at the same time at the same speed. The train company has decided which routes it will run, and the train follows the same tracks, time and again. You have a limited range of possible destinations.
Informal learning is more like riding a bike. You might ride alone, or choose to go along with other people. You decide where to go and how fast to go. If you see something interesting on the way, you can take a detour, or just stop to admire the scenery. In a recent workshop with young people to explore and develop their own ideas about how technologies could support their informal learning, they had no trouble in explaining how informal learning played a part in their own lives.
One girl spoke about how she had learnt to use social networking services in a professional way to promote club nights. Another boy talked about how simply living his life from day to day was a process of learning that never stopped. Learning how to survive out on the streets was, for him, an essential informal learning experience.
At work, we learn most of our job through experience - through watching, talking to others, finding resources, and trying things out. Things are no different for young people. It’s about time we recognised the importance of informal learning in the wider ecology of our learning lives. It might not always be the loudest or brightest, but if you look closely, you’ll find informal learning going on all around you.
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Bob Harrison
Ben Williamson
Dan Sutch
Richard Sandford
Leon Cych
Martin Owen
Tim Reader
June 15th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I would distinguish two forms of informal learning:
(1) Independent informal learning: where I reflect upon an experience and extract learning from it. The experience, and probably also the reflection, were at my own instigation and direction.
(2) Supported informal learning: where someone suggests an activity I might explore, based upon my existing interests/questions/situation, and I explore that activity, reflect upon it and learn from it. The choice of activity, and the reflection, may result from significant external inputs.
Crucially, even if (2) is supported by a professional and happens in a semi-structured way (e.g. at a youth club, or a regular session) because the choice of activity, learning outcome and process is not determined by curriculum the learning is informal learning. It is important that informal learning doesn’t always mean undirected or unsupported learning (although meandering and finding serendipitous learning discoveries is also to be valued).
Or taking another track - we might say that informal learning is learning that an individual truly owns for themselves - rather than learning which, by virtue of testing and enforcement really seems to belong to some external force.