Most learning on the job is informal. This book offers advice on how to support, nurture, and leverage informal learning and helps trainers to go beyond their typical classes and programs in order to widen and deepen heir reach. The author reminds us that we live in a new, radically different, constantly changing, and often distracting workplace. He guides us through the plethora of digital learning tools that workers are now accessing through their computers, PDAs, and cell phones.
Informal Learning in Youth Work offers fresh perspectives on all aspects of informal education in the youth work setting. Designed to develop the reader′s knowledge and skills, this comprehensive textbook explores key issues such as communication, power relations, ethics, gender exclusion, sexuality, race discrimination and social class. The author places particular emphasis on conversation as a key means of promoting informal learning and engaging effectively with young people. Other key features include: " case studies that illustrate the application of theory to `real-life′ practice " an emphasis on critical reflection, including reflective questions " an easily accessible style, with key terms and tips for further reading " a four-part structure guiding the reader through different stages of conversations and relationships in informal education. Informal Learning in Youth Work provides a unique combination of theoretical analysis and practice tips. Satisfying training and course requirements in the area, it will be essential reading for all students on youth and community work courses, as well as those in allied fields such as education and social work. It will also be a valuable reference for practitioners working with young people on a daily basis.
Educational theory and practice have long been dominated by the requirements of formal learning. This book seeks to persuade readers through philosophical argument and empirical examples that the balance should shift back towards the informal. The arguments and examples derive from informal learning in diverse situations, such as leisure activities, as a preparation for and as part of work, and as a means of surviving undesirable circumstances like dead-end jobs and incarceration.
This book deals with the relevance of recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning education and training, the workplace and society. In an increasing number of countries, it is at the top of the policy and research agenda ranking among the possible ways to redress the glaring lack of relevant academic and vocational qualifications and to promote the development of competences and certification procedures which recognise different types of learning, including formal, non-formal and informal learning. The aim of the book is therefore to present and share experience, expertise and lessons in such a way that enables its effective and immediate use across the full spectrum of country contexts, whether in the developing or developed world. It examines the importance of meeting institutional and political requirements that give genuine value to the recognition of non-formal and informal learning; it shows why recognition is important and clarifies its usefulness and the role it serves in education, working life and voluntary work; it emphasises the importance of the coordination, interests, motivations, trust and acceptance by all stakeholders. The volume is also premised on an understanding of a learning society, in which all social and cultural groups, irrespective of gender, race, social class, ethnicity, mental health difficulties are entitled to quality learning throughout their lives. Overall the thrust is to see the importance of recognising non-formal and informal learning as part of the larger movement for re-directing education and training for change. This change is one that builds on an equitable society and economy and on sustainable development principles and values such as respect for others, respect for difference and diversity, exploration and dialogue.
Informal science is a burgeoning field that operates across a broad range of venues and envisages learning outcomes for individuals, schools, families, and society. The evidence base that describes informal science, its promise, and effects is informed by a range of disciplines and perspectives, including field-based research, visitor studies, and psychological and anthropological studies of learning. Learning Science in Informal Environments draws together disparate literatures, synthesizes the state of knowledge, and articulates a common framework for the next generation of research on learning science in informal environments across a life span. Contributors include recognized experts in a range of disciplines-research and evaluation, exhibit designers, program developers, and educators. They also have experience in a range of settings-museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, aquariums, zoos, state parks, and botanical gardens. Learning Science in Informal Environments is an invaluable guide for program and exhibit designers, evaluators, staff of science-rich informal learning institutions and community-based organizations, scientists interested in educational outreach, federal science agency education staff, and K-12 science educators.
Learning in Places is a concerted effort undertaken by an outstanding group of international researchers to create a resource book that can introduce academic, professional and lay readers to the field of informal learning/education and its potential to transform present educational thinking. The book presents a wealth of ideas from a wide variety of disciplinary fields and methodological approaches covering multiple learning landscapes - in museums, workplaces, classrooms, places of recreation - in a variety of political, social and cultural contexts around the world. Learning in Places presents the most recent theoretical advances in the field; analyzing the social, cultural, political, historical and economical contexts within which informal learning develops and must be critiqued. It also looks into the epistemology that nourishes its development and into the practices that characterize its implementation; and finally reflects on the variety of educational contexts in which it is practiced.
Today educational activities take place not only in school but also in after-school programs, community centers, museums, and online communities and forums. The success and expansion of these out-of-school initiatives depends on our ability to document and assess what works and what doesn't in informal learning, but learning outcomes in these settings are often unpredictable. Goals are open-ended; participation is voluntary; and relationships, means, and ends are complex. This report charts the state of the art for learning assessment in informal settings, offering an extensive review of the literature, expert discussion on key topics, a suggested model for comprehensive assessment, and recommendations for good assessment practices.
This book has two purposes: To open up the debate on the role of informal education in schooling systems and to suggest the kind of school organizational environment that can best facilitate the recognition of informal learning. Successive chapters explore what is often seen as a duality between informal and formal learning. This duality is particularly so because education systems expend so much time and effort in certifying formal knowledge often expressed in school subjects reflecting academic disciplines.Recognizing the contribution informal learning can make to young people’s understanding and development does not negate the importance of valued social knowledge: That complements it. Students come to school with knowledge learnt from their families, peers, the community and both traditional and social media. They should not have to "unlearn" this in order to enter the world of formal learning. Rather, students’ different learning "worlds" should be integrated so that each informs the other. In a knowledge-based society, all learning needs to be valued. Some contributors to this book reflect on how new educational systems could be created in a move away from top-down authoritarian and bureaucratic management. Such open systems are seen to be more welcoming in acknowledging the importance of informal learning. Others provide practical examples of how informal learning is currently recognized. Some attention is also paid to the evaluation of informal learning. A key objective of the work presented here is to stimulate debate about the role of informal learning in knowledge-based societies and to stimulate thinking about the kind of reforms needed to create more open and more democratic school learning environments.
Contemporary educational practices are heeding the calls of Wall Street for more corporate control, privatisation and standardised accountability. In many cases, educational policies are created to uphold and serve particular social, political and economic ends. Schools, in a sense, have been tools to reproduce hierarchical, authoritarian and hyper-individualistic models of social order. The important news is that emancipatory educational practices are emerging. Out of the Ruins sets out to explore and discuss the emergence of alternative learning spaces.
Alan Rogers looks at learning (formal, nonformal and informal) and examines the hidden world of informal (unconscious, unplanned) learning. He points out the importance of informal learning for creating tacit attitudes and values, knowledge and skills which influence (conscious, planned) learning – formal and non-formal. Moreover, he explores the implications of informal learning for educational planners and teachers in the context of lifelong learning. While mainly aimed at adult educators, the book’s arguments apply also to schooling and higher education, in both industrialised societies and developing countries where large numbers of children and adults are not and have not been in school and so rely on informal learning to manage change.
