“It’s critical that training and development professionals not go overboard with command and control when they support informal learning. If they do they are likely to kill it. And since informal learning makes up the bulk of learning inside organizations, this could be a truly perilous move.”   ~ Patti Shank, Director of Research at The eLearning Guild

How can we define informal learning?

Michael Eraut, professor of education at the University of Sussex Institute of Education in the UK, says that we often treat informal learning as a ‘leftover’ to describe learning that “does not take place within, or follow from, a formally organised learning programme or event.”

Eraut explains informal by defining what it is not, i.e. by defining “formal learning” as having any of the following:  a prescribed learning framework; an organized learning event or package; the presence of a designated teacher or trainer; the award of a qualification or credit; the external specification of outcome. Patti Shank, Director of Research at The eLearning Guild, provides a better definition (what it is rather than what it is not!) – a definition adapted from Saul Carliner’s book, Informal Learning Basics: informal learning includes situations where the learner determines some or all combinations of the process, location, purpose, and content, and may or may not even be aware that instruction has occurred. Continue reading →