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Informal learning

Formal learning is doing a course for accreditation in an institution. What is informal learning? Several dimensions.

List 2: Independent dimensions?

• Intention. Does the learner intend to learn (formal)? We learn our first language unintentionally (informal); and our first maths in the sense of the Piagetian conservations. N.B. deep learning is characterised by learners saying they are not trying to learn but trying to understand (informal?).
• Teacher intention or learner intention? Is the topic one required by the teacher (formal), or desired by the learner regardless of the teacher (informal)? (Is the choice of content intrinsically or extrinsically defined?)

  [The two dimensions above are in fact independent. You can have cases of learning that is not intended by the learner, but is intended by the teacher, who conceals the intention fromn the learner. In fact, probably most professional kindergarten "instruction" is of this kind.]

• How far is the learning scripted? i.e. are the learning activities formally required, or informally and perhaps unconsciously chosen. A course might:
  • Have a certificate but nothing else fixed e.g. a PhD.
  • Certificate and curriculum (and exam): no other activities required
  • Some learning activities required e.g. compulsory lecture attendance, but most time spent individually in the library etc.
  • All learning activities organised, no homework required.
• How much is the learning connected to the learner's own experience? Formal = disconnected, abstract; informal = connected to existing personal experiences. In Laurillard's model, formal would in this sense be an incomplete, unsatisfactory learning process compared to informal.
• Implicit pre-requisites. All courses assume things, usually never articulated e.g. that the learners understand English, that they can read, that they can write, that they can write essays. That they are skilled in group interactions neither talking all the time nor being quiet all the time. That they spent thousands of hours tinkering with mechanical things in their childhood. These pre-requisites are often acquired informally: there are no courses on them.

  Thus these things are learned, and are essential to formal learning; yet are informally learned in every sense. If we implicitly assume these things, we exclude students without them [ CMU ref: ref1 ref2]; but if we don't assume and build on them, then we a) get enormously less learning done; b) patronise students; c) fail to connect to their own experience and prior learning.

List 1

• Mending cars: a childhood spent doing things mechanical.
• The learning is assessed or not. (Cf. extrinsically or intrinsically motivated.)
• The learning is assessed in a fixed way e.g. unseen exam, vs. "informal" learning with much more open kinds of assessment.
• The learning is accredited or not.
• Learning objectives are fixed, vs. negotiated, vs. invented by the learner.
• Learning activities are fixed, vs. negotiated, vs. invented by the learner.
• Teacher does exposition OR teacher doesn't (but just sets objectives, structures/supports activities by learners to find materials). [Betty Collis definition]
• Teaching has an informal atmosphere, in the hope that learners will bring up their relevant personal experiences that relate to the subject. [Christine Sinclair's definition]
• Formal = accredited. Informal = intentional but not accredited. Non-formal = what we all do in picking up information as a side effect of other activities. [Peter Sloep definition]
• Intentional learning, or not.
• Discussion over coffee: not organised by teachers, but important contribution to officially set objectives. I.e. the learning activity is informal, the learning objectives are formal.

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