Informal learning was not an invention of the Computer Age. However the degree to which corporate learning and development departments seem to be preoccupied with it seems to suggest that it is the new flavour of the month. The headline questions seem to be:

• “What is informal learning?”
• “Should it be of interest to corporate L & D departments?”
• “What role does technology play in informal learning?”

It is very tempting to try to reduce complex notions like this to a few bulleted points. It is very tempting to temper difficult concepts in this way and then move on to the next “killer application”. You might say informal learning:

1. has no prescribed framework
2. does not consist of organised learning events or objects
3. does not have a teacher or trainer present
4. does not lead to an award or qualification
5. does not have to transfer to some behaviour or performance, nor achieve some defined result.

The deeper I think about this the more I become uncomfortable at the limits of my own understanding. I find myself making various assertions and then challenging and rejecting them almost as soon as the words I type appear on screen. There are many paradoxes in this subject. Once you begin to create an intervention, such as the provision of resources and infrastructure, you might argue that all informality is negated. As you read and listen to the words of others you become aware that some view formality as contained within the time or place of learning. It is often defined as “learning that takes place outside classrooms.”

To the Zoo

The implication then is that if a teacher takes a class in the park or at the zoo then the learning is not formal. But if you have to line up in rows, carry a checklist or spotters’ questionnaire, then some formality has been reintroduced. The same is true if a trainer takes a group on outward bound activities. The renowned educator Maria Montessori spent much of her time in classrooms providing not lessons but an environment for learning. It is a matter of sensory stimulation – surrounding a learner with the sights and sounds that intrigue and stimulate a spirit of enquiry and a thirst for knowledge. Surely you can extend that approach to adults at home or at work. The Internet and emerging computer technologies are providing some obvious opportunities for enriching the environment around us. But we should also remember that how we choose to decorate walls and notice boards, how we behave as a culture and how we interact with colleagues supplies and customers are fertile areas of informal learning.

It’s All Greek to Me

Others see formality as bound up in the purpose and goals for learning – if it has a prescribed performance outcome then it cannot be informal they will say. But by this definition the learning of Latin or Ancient Greek would be informal learning. So that cannot be right. The condition known as latency enters the argument now. If the moment arrives when I copy an action that I noticed casually while waiting for a bus two months ago, have I altered history? Have I turned my informal learning event into a formal one?

Some look at methods of delivery and find the essence of informality in the ways in which a learner grows knowledge and skills. If I rely upon a third party for my learning (teacher, tutor, colleague, friend) then maybe I am formalising my learning. I can think of a number of extra-curricula learning experiences that happened to me in classrooms at an early age. For there it was Colin Yates taught me how to make a paper aeroplane. A girl called Elizabeth C taught me what it meant to be neglected by your Mum and Dad and so I learned compassion and just a little kindness. Frankie created the conditions for me to learn coping strategies to deal with bullying. I won’t tell you what “Gillian with a G” taught me (or where) but it was a lesson for life.

Tamarinds

Most of all there seems to be a good deal of overlap between informal learning and the kind of learning we sometimes refer to implicit or tacit. Now tacit learning has much easier dimensions with which to grapple. It has been defined as “learning that occurs without the subject being able to explain how” (Parking 1993).

I’m frequently engaged in learning things that I know I’ll never put to any practical use. It’s a habit; I read newspapers without absorbing every word. I read cereal boxes and sauce bottles. I can recite the ingredients of HP sauce, tamarinds and all. I know many other things that I cannot recall ever having learnt. So I’m in no doubt that I’ve engaged on many occasions in some informal learning. It was learning without any planned transfer to performance or behaviour. This type of learning may become explicit only if ever I need to apply it or to link it with other things I’m yet to learn. Psychologists seem to agree that knowledge is organised into patterns and structure and associations in our minds. It may remain latent, that is to say it may not ever show up in any kind of action or performance and so we may not ever know that it is there.

Testing the Theory

To test the theory let me put some questions to you.

1. First of all, “When did you last go swimming?”
2. Second, “Can you describe a swimming pool and say what it is for?”
3. Third, “How many swimming pools do you pass on the journey from home to work?”
4. Fourth, “How do you swim?”

Let’s look at those four questions again.

1. The first one, “When did you last go swimming?” is no more than a test of how well you can recall your personal past (to give it a fancy name it is a test of episodic memory.)
2. The call to describe a swimming pool and say what it is for is similar, but you may not even need any personal experience upon which to call. Suppose you’ve never visited a swimming pool; nevertheless it is more than likely that you would be able to answer the question by using your knowledge of what words mean – this is known as your semantic memory.
3. Question three – “How many swimming pools do you pass on the journey from home to work?” is the sort of question that stimulates your RAS – your reticular activating system. It’s a bit like using Google – there maybe millions of images, words and ideas networked and connected to other ideas in your brain. You may never consciously see a green Ford Fiesta on the road, but buy one and you’ll soon be seeing them all over the place.
4. The fourth question, “How do you swim?” is the most difficult because it is asking you to process and express some types of information that may not be understood in the conscious mind.

As I reflected on these different products of learning, I revisited the website www.losethetrainingwheels.org

It has some wonderfully simple but intellectually deep thoughts and statements.

One comes from a ten year old who says, “If you want to ride a bike, you must have faith, believe, pedal and look forward”.

Maybe this is the nub of informal learning.

You can do much in a formal setting to learn about bike riding. You might even delve deep into the physics of the subject – critical velocity, the properties of steel and carbon and their application to the construction of bicycles, the characteristics of non-minimum phase systems and so on. This would probably be formal learning. And what would make it formal would be the method of study – an academic book-type learning; the topic – knowledge and comprehension in the cognitive taxonomy – facts and concepts you can tell and test. The control of the goal would be with someone else. It is unlikely anyone would list these difficult and rather dull topics in a set of “must knows” connected with riding a bike. However if you had previously learned that rubber comes from latex then you might link that idea with pneumatic tyres and think of it as you mended a puncture.

So I have to hand the questions back to you:

“What is informal learning?” “Should it be of interest to corporate L & D departments?” “What is the role for technology in informal learning?”