INFORMAL LEARNING

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INFORMAL LEARNING

• AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

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• Try to think of any recent learning you have done
  outside of any formal course or class
• What did you learn?
• How did you learn?
• Who helped you?

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Two kinds of learning

• How did you learn your first language?
• How did you learn another language?

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Contrast informal and formal learning

• Informal often unconscious/task-conscious
  learning
• Formal is learning-conscious learning planned
  learning (education)
• Non-formal is a planned mixture of the two

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Two kinds of learning

• Qualification even within informal learning
  there are formal elements and within formal
  learning, there are informal elements
• Continuum

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INFORMAL AND FORMAL LEARNING

• Learning is often thought of as formal or
  informal. These are not discrete categories,
  and to think that they are is to misunderstand
  the nature of learning. It is more accurate to
  conceive formality and informality as
  attributes present in all circumstances of
  learning. The priority is then to identify these
  attributes, explore their relationships, and
  identify their effects on learners, teachers and
  the learning environment

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Two kinds of learning

• But we can distinguish between informal learning
  and formal learning
• much learning is unconscious compare breathing
• task-conscious learning and learning- conscious
  learning

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What is the difference?
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Informal Learning

• Informal learning is natural process compare
  breathing eating learning making sense of
  experience and growing
• We all do it we need learning to learn only in
  the same sense as learning to breathe (properly
  or in a certain way) better to study

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Informal learning process

• Learning as social practice learning events
  learning practices
• Social identities motivation to join
  communities of practice
• Sites of informal learning work, community,
  family, physical environment, self
• Informal learning in the classroom

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Results of informal learning

• informal learning builds up
• tacit funds of knowledge and frameworks
• skills
• learning styles
• attitudes, perceptions of self and subject,
  identity, confidence but because largely
  unconscious, identity as learner not
  recognised may still feel ignorant, incompetent
  and unconfident

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Limitations of informal learning

• Limited to occasion/context examples
• Often not transferable
• Often unconscious, habituation, mechanical
  application
• Needs formal learning to make it conscious/usable
  on a wider scale.

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Informal learning in action

• Case study catching a bus

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Value of informal learning?

• Value system of West, priority of formal
  learning/education
• informal learning neglected by educational
  planners
• accepted by most of us done no learning since
  leaving school.

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Importance of informal learning

• Adult learners come to formal learning with a
  wide range of informal learning and existing
  funds of knowledge
• Existing knowledge may act as barrier to new
  knowledge - all formal learning is tested against
  informal, experience education is a challenge
  to change or supplement existing frames.

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Importance of informal learning

• Confusion over benefits of formal learning
  assert benefits come from formal learning but
  may come from informal learning
• example literacy

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INFORMAL LEARNING CHALLENGES FOR FORMAL LEARNING
If it is true that most of our learning is done
outside of the classroom, what are the
implications for our programmes of learning?
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INFORMAL LEARNING CHALLENGES FOR FORMAL LEARNING

• Just pick out two
• How to incorporate informal learning into formal?
  -
• discover sources and contents of informal
  learning
• try to use already held funds of knowledge
  relate the new to the existing
• bring the lived experience into the classroom

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INFORMAL LEARNING ISSUES FOR FORMAL LEARNING

• Secondly,
• How do we find out? Use of ethnographic surveys
  teachers as researchers
• Sites of learning?
• What learned?
• How learned?

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Case study informal learning of literacy (in
developing societies)

• What has been learned?
• Perceptions of literacy and selves
• what literacy is and who it is for
• our position in a literate society
• deficit
• literacy identified with schooling

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Learning of self and literacy

• Literacy is all around non-literates engage in
  literacy tasks (use different strategies)
• Focal points for literacy literacy selects its
  clients

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Case study informal learning of literacy

• What has been learned?
• b) Some literacy skills learned informally e.g.
• occupational literacies
• informal literacies (txt mssgs school notes
  etc)
• religious literacies

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Case study informal learning of literacy

• What has been learned?
• Different literacies continued learning
• e.g.
• bureaucratic literacies
• academic literacies
• etc
• Literacy and power tells us what we can write
  and read and what not

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Case study informal learning of literacy

• Confusion over benefits of formal learning
  assert benefits come from formal learning but
  may come from informal learning

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Case study informal learning of literacy (in
developing societies)

• Implications for devising new adult literacy
  learning programmes
• adult learners do not come ignorant deficit
• identity, motivation and confidence depend on
  informal learning
• cannot adopt a one-size-fits-all approach
• there will be informal learning during the formal
  class to be built upon
• single-injection mode not enough

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INFORMAL LEARNING

• is the basis of all formal learning
• is an essential element of formal learning and
  needs to be encouraged, not discouraged.