Is it better to learn something because you are so intensely
interested in it that you take delight in consuming as much
information on the topic as possible in whatever disorganized fashion
suits your fancy? Or is it better to learn something because you are
required to, by means of dragging yourself to a series of lectures,
readings, and exams so that in the end you can mark off a mental
checkbox and say "yes, I learned that"?
Or maybe the whole picture is a little more complicated than that.
Informal learning is driven by the student's desire to learn, and accomplished through whatever channels the student can locate and deem helpful. The major advantage of informal learning is precisely that: the student him or herself is intrinsically motivated to learn the material. This makes sure that the learning process, even if at times challenging, is enjoyable, not a drudgery.
Informal learning might take place in a formal academic setting, but it need not, and even if it does, it certainly need not be limited to that. There are so many resources available today through books and web pages and videos and podcasts that a great many matters can be learned broadly and deeply without ever setting foot in an actual school. This makes learning possible to those who cannot afford to pay for formal education, and to those who cannot make room in their schedule to attend regular classes.
Methods of informal learning are not limited to consuming prepared information. A major component of informal learning frequently is building something, creating something, fixing something to put into practice what you have learned so far and to further your knowledge through real-life experience and experimentation.
Around 1995 I started composing and recording music. I had taken some music lessons on various instruments, but had effectively no formal training in music theory. I learned some things from my dad, and did a lot of listening to music, trying to understand what was going on, and experimentation into creating my own music that was similar to things I had heard.
The result? I was able to create some music that, while perhaps not "professional", was pretty decent for my skill level. I wrote and recorded music for some video productions that was perfectly usable, and a number of instrumental compositions that had real potential.
Another example: in 2005 I bought my first SLR camera, initially to take photographs for a website project. I ended up enjoying it so much that I've invested quite a bit of time and money into a photography hobby.
I've never taken a formal class in photography. Instead, I did my learning through reading articles, discussions, and asking questions and the educational photography website photo.net. I also did a lot of experimentation, looking at photographs that I liked and trying to figure out how to create a similar photograph myself, through changing the aperture and exposure settings on the camera. (Using a digital camera made this a lot easier than using a film camera!)
The result? I was asked to photograph some weddings and some sports events. A few of my photos have been used on others' websites. I have not attained professional photographer status, but I really don't want to try; I find it more enjoyable to take pictures for fun than for somebody else, so just as long as I am happy with the results then it's all good.
The driving force of informal learning—the intrinsic desire to learn on the part of the student—can be the downfall of informal learning if in fact the student does not desire to learn.
Why should a student ever have to learn something that he or she is not interested in? That's a fine kettle of fish to ponder, but perhaps just one or two examples could persuade us that it could happen.
It might be harder to explain the logic behind forcing an engineering student to spend a semester learning Shakespeare, but then again, Dr. Carl Sagan made the thoughtful statement that, "the brain does much more than just recollect; it intercompares, it synthesizes, analyzes; it generates abstractions!" Even when we can't point to concrete skills acquired by learning something new, maybe our overall mentality and ability to think and reason is enhanced.
If you are faced with having to learn something that is not exactly inspiring, does informal learning still work?
Perhaps more commonly, what if you are inspired to learn a subject, but only to a degree? Your own desire to learn takes you to a certain level of understanding, but is that enough? How could you know? If you only know a subject in part, then by definition you are not in position to know what you don't know, or how valuable what you don't know could be to you.
While I learned a great deal through experimenting with music composition and arrangement, I ultimately did end up taking formal classes in music theory. At first I was somewhat confused; some of the formal knowledge meshed with what I already knew, but some things seemed to be in conflict. It took me years of letting the class material sink into my mind before I felt I really had assimilated it.
But it was worth it. I had gaps in my understanding of music that I had no idea were there. I was rediscovering and rederiving basic concepts of music theory that had been well known for centuries, only my versions were ad hoc and messy. Once I learned the established techniques, I was able to use musical concepts intentionally and on purpose, rather than flinging ideas at the wall to see which ones stuck.
I wouldn't have cared, though, about the formal learning if I didn't have an intrinsic desire to learn the material. The desire to learn prompted my informal learning, and the formal learning helped to solidify and clarify and multiplywhat I had discovered on my own.
As another example, I never got into database programming much while a computer science student in college. I took a class in it, but the whole topic just seemed boring. Some years ago I finally realized how very useful database programming could be, and got a glimpse into using databases to drive interactive web applications.
I read bits and pieces of books and tutorials and started tinkering. I made some good headway through this informal learning, but I always felt like there were things I was missing.
Last year I took a short but intensive class at MIT on database programming, in which we cycled through brief lectures, in-class programming activities, and discussion of solutions. All of the materials we looked at in class I had seen and referenced on my own, but I had never taken the time to go through them all completely. I had just picked out the parts that looked relevant to me. In doing so I was indeed able to make progress at creating, but I was missing out on depth of understanding. The structure of this class, forcing me to focus and look at things that I might not have thought were "interesting", led me to much greater understanding of the material.
Briefly then, informal learning is limited, or not, by the learner. I could have learned all of that database programming material on my own; the resources were right in front of me. I just didn't learn it on my own. I had reached my own limits of self-motivation, and needed assistance through formal learning to fill in the gaps.
If you go to school and get a degree, it's pretty easy for other people to assess your education and related abilities, at least superficially: you have such-and-such degree, therefore you must have acquired some minimum amount of knowledge and some minimum amount of skill. Holding a degree is not always an accurate representation of one's learning, but, for example, when faced with a thousand people applying for a single job, it can be one easy factor for employers to consider.
How can you reliably assess informal learning? The informal learner can cite books read and skills acquired, but there is no accredited institution standing behind those claims. Informal learners may have learned just as much as or more than their formally-educated counterparts, but conveying that can be a challenge.
It's easy enough to use the web to share about what you've learned: you can write tutorials and essays on topics you have studied that demonstrate your knowledge; you can build an online portfolio of projects (photographs, designs, software, etc.) to showcase your abilities. This takes additional effort beyond waving a piece of paper that says "degree" on it, but it likely paints a more accurate picture of what you can do.
Will anyone care? In the case of the aforementioned employer sifting through a thousand job applicants, quick to toss out those who don't hold a particular degree, it might be unlikely that they would take the time to study an informal learner's portfolio.
This is a real problem. Society has become too dependent upon evaluating a person's credentials, and not the person. Until this changes, informal learners may have to simply be that much more impressive: use what has been learned to create and do great things. Even if nobody cares about your informal education itself, it's harder to ignore amazing accomplishments.
There's no reason that informal learning needs to be totally distinct from formal learning. As a computer science student in college, I learned the materials we were covering in class, but also supplemented the class materials with studying other areas of computer science that interested me. And much of my study of the official subjects was done in an informal manner: reading, experimenting, tinkering. The classes served more as guidelines for learning rather than the source of learning.
100% pure formal learning might be dismal; 100% pure informal learning might be stupid. Learning exactly what someone else wants you to learn with absolutely no interest on your part sounds more like programming a robot than teaching a student. Trying to learn everything about a subject totally from scratch, rederiving everything, never seeking books or advice from someone who has gone before you, sounds like a waste of time.
We should aim for incorporating aspects of informal learning into our lives as much as possible, because it makes learning fun and makes it stick, but we should also be open to accepting help through formal learning resources if we realize we have reached our own limits.
Copyright © 2013 Trevis J. Rothwell