The topic of informal learning is one I’m passionate about. I feel that informal learning, and self-education generally, will eventually overtake formal learning in societal importance when it comes to post-high school education. By no means do I envision formal higher education becoming irrelevant. It will always have its place. But I do not think much of contemporary higher education best serves the educational needs of many students.
With that said, I see a lot of complexity beginning to emerge around informal learning. That’s to be expected. Lots of people have a vested interest in adding to the complexity in order to justify their own systems, consulting services, publications, and so on. But every time you add complexity to anything, you potentially diminish the results you’re trying to attain.
One of my personal mantras is simplicity. It’s one of those universal principles that tends to improve just about anything it’s applied to. Informal learning is no different.
You can approach informal learning quite simply with no real structure, but sometimes a bit of structure helps. For personal learning objectives, such structure may not be necessary. But when corporate training groups try to put informal learning programs into place, their tendency can often be to over complicate and over process it. Offering an alternative, simpler structure is good in those instances.
Stick with tools and technologies that are ubiquitous and easily used and learned. Most people already know how to use a word processing program, search the web, and use a library. Implementing complex software applications, micromanaged processes, or non-standard learning resources can take the focus away from the actual learning and place it on the mechanisms instead. Bad idea.
Keep the learning objective simple and concise. It’s better to break down bigger learning objectives into smaller chunks of learning so that momentum isn’t lost and so that accomplishment can be seen more quickly. It’s better to have a series of easily undertaken learning projects that lead to a bigger, overall objective than to make it all one big one learning project.
Remember the basic components of an informal learning project.
- Objective: What is it you want to learn? If what you want to learn encompasses a broad domain of knowledge or skill, break it down into smaller chunks and only focus on the first in the series.
- Current Knowledge or Skill: Where are you at today as it relates to the learning objective? What do you know? What can you do? Do you have knowledge or skills you can build on to achieve the learning objective, or are you essentially starting from the foundation basics.
- Gaps: Identify the gaps between what you know or can do now and the ultimate learning objective.
- Resources: From what resources can you learn? Some possibilities are people who already know what you need to learn, books and other publications, the web, discussion groups, and videos. Brainstorm as many of these resources as possible when you are beginning the learning project.
- Approach: How are you going to approach the learning? Do you plan to read a book on the subject first? Might that be enough, or do you need to interview some people too? Perhaps you can create a project for yourself with an actual deliverable that serves as the mechanism to encourage the learning. Maybe you want to form an online or in person discussion group to learn with others. There are many options.
- Proof: This is something that’s often left off of informal learning plans. It’s fine to say that you’ve read a book, completed some training, or whatever, but that doesn’t really prove that you know the subject or have the skill. So how can that be demonstrated? Maybe you can do a short presentation to someone or to a team. Or you could write a summary or outline of the information. Or you could create something that demonstrates a skill, such as a simple software application to demonstrate that you know how to code or a magazine article to show that you know how to write in a journalistic style. Get creative. There are lots of ways to prove what you know. Also, these proofs of knowledge or skill can serve another purpose. When it comes time to demonstrate to a prospective employer what you know and can do, such proofs are incredibly valuable additions to your job seeking portfolio. Hiring managers are becoming less and less impressed with information in a résumé. They know résumés are often inflated or inaccurate. Having these proofs of your range of knowledge and skills can be the determining factor for you getting the job.
- Milestones: If there is a critical need to complete portions or all of the learning by a certain date, note that date. This is more likely in corporate or business learning environments, but some people might also prefer to set milestone dates for themselves to keep them on track.
- Notes: A learner needs someplace to make notes of important points, thoughts that emerge as they’re learning, and resources they’ve stumbled upon as they learn. It is vital that a learner have the ability to revisit such notes to act as refreshers for such learning. Learners remember best from their own notes, not those created by someone else. Detailed notes also serve the purpose of demonstrating some proof of knowledge, but it doesn’t really replace a true proof deliverable.
All of this can be managed quite nicely in a simple word processing document.
As an example of how all this might tie together, imagine this scenario in a corporate informal learning situation.
- A manager meets with an employee and they determine together that there is a certain learning objective the employee should undertake.
- The manager gives the employee a simple word processing document template and asks them to create a draft of the informal learning plan based on the agreed upon learning objective. The template includes detailed instructions for each of the sections that help guide the employee in the creation of the document.
- They meet again and finalize the document together to their mutual satisfaction.
- The employee uses the document as guidance for their learning as they use the approach agreed upon between manager and employee to learn the information or skill. The employee continues to enhance the document as they use it adding additional information as the learning project unfolds.
- Eventually the employee creates the proof mechanism and presents that proof to the manager who assesses if the proof does indeed prove adequate knowledge or skill.
- When the manager is satisfied that the learning objective has been achieved, the document is kept by the employee to act as a reference in the future and it’s also archived in a structured repository that can be referenced by other employees to speed up their learning when they have similar learning objectives in the future. If appropriate, the proof deliverable is stored with the document.
Pretty simple, huh? No complicated processes or tools. It gets the job done. The simplicity of the plan, process and tools keeps the focus on the learning itself and not the mechanisms surrounding the learning.
Do you have any ideas about how to best undertake informal learning, both on a personal level and within corporate/business environments? Add a comment here to share your thoughts.