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In this chapter I review the key issues relevant to developing a comprehensive understanding of informal learning and work. To do so, I present a brief history of the origins of the informal learning concept arguing that key principles - namely the importance of personal experience, flexibility, local/indigenous knowledge, control/power and learning recognition - embedded in this genealogy still inform scholarship today. Following this, I review leading models of learning and work (from Livingstone, Eraut and Illeris) endorsing an eclectic range of theoretical points of emphasis which sees formality and informality as a continuum and not dichotomous categories. I take some time to review a major critique of the informal learning concept, before turning to a review of the leading methods of investigating informal learning and work and the key findings they have offered to date.

Excerpt from published introduction.

The book from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 100.51. Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 100.52 to TD/TNC 100.244. Show less

This paper provides an account of the development of online communities at Ultralab for students engaged on masters-level programmes, doctoral research and continuing professional learning. It considers the ways in which the engagement of learners, and their consequent participation, is seen to be dependent on several factors - the learners' perception of purpose, their sense of identity and trust, framing of learning activities, interventions from learning facilitators and tutors, and the information architecture of the learning space. The notion of engagement in this online community in higher education (HE) is explored. The term 'community of enquiry' is used to indicate the key purpose of the community - that of practitioner-based enquiry, or research.

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To support the continuing learning of older people, it is essential that we are able to build on their own understandings of learning across the lifespan. This paper uses the life histories of nine aged Australian women to illustrate how one group of women was able to create a personally meaningful narrative that encompassed learning experiences in formal education settings (life-long learning) and in informal settings (life-wide learning). Exploring the dimensions and language of learning memories enables us to better understand, speak of, and acknowledge learning in all its dimensions.

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Scotland has a particular history, that moves around the unique public experiences of the Enlightenment and the Act of Union as defining moments that could have developed differently. For complex reasons, public thinking moved more and more towards the fractured moral and political conditions that we know now. But, following the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, this paper argues that by re-engaging the issues of an educated public found in the early years of Scotland's eighteenth century, the dialogic processes of adult education could still move things on to a more coherent and positive future where 'community based' learning could no longer be thought about as marginal. The traditions of adult education would have to be considered far more central in the recreation of an educated public and a healthy participative democracy.

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This report presents selected data on adults' participation in work-related educational activities in the United States over a 12-month period from 2002-03. These data are from the Adult Education for Work-Related Reasons [AEWR] Survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys [NHES] Program. Interviews were conducted with a nationally representative sample of the civilian, non-institutionalized population age 16 or older who were not enrolled in grade 12 or below. For the AEWR-NHES:2003 survey, work-related adult education was defined as both formal and informal learning activities that were done for reasons related to work. Findings indicate that during the 12-month period between early 2002 and early 2003, 40 per cent of adults in the United States took part in one or more formal adult educational activities for work-related reasons. Also, 58 per cent of adults who participated in adult educational activities for work-related reasons participated in informal learning activities for work-related reasons.

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The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) has been established as a national unified framework through which learning of all types can be recognised and the relationships between qualifications clarified. It is a comprehensive framework which includes higher education, academic and vocational qualifications, and aims to include informal learning. This research is a small scale qualitative study looking at the initial impact of the SCQF. The SCQF is currently at a developmental stage, and it is felt that such an evaluation will assist in providing shape and coherence to the future development and use of the framework. The Scottish Executive has commissioned the Centre for Research and Lifelong Learning (Glasgow Caledonian University, University of Stirling), and Edinburgh University to carry out this evaluation.

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For new trade and industrial (T&I) teachers in the US, making the transition from industry to teaching requires them to acquire professional teaching competencies. For these teachers, formal teacher training in the area of pedagogy before entering the school workplace is unusual. The majority of them are employed in schools and beginning to teach while still attending alternative teacher preparation programs. This exploratory study aimed to investigate how new T&I teachers learn core teaching competencies and how the learning method relates to their perceptions of proficiency in these competencies. Specifically, the research examined: to what extent new T&I teachers enrolled in an alternative certification program learn the program's core teaching competencies through formal or informal learning; to what extent these teachers perceived their proficiency in the competencies; and the relationship of perceived proficiency with the extent of informal learning or formal learning. The results suggest that teachers perceived that, although they also engage in informal learning, they had learned competencies largely through formal learning methods and that they had at least average proficiency in each of the core competencies listed on the questionnaire. The study could not draw a definite conclusion as to a connection between how a competency is learned, either formally or informally, and how well it is learned. Show less

This review is designed to assist the New Zealand Industry Training Federation in its efforts to encourage, support and further the development of appropriate work-based (work-related) education and training models. The review seeks to uncover the extensive amount of effective learning that occurs in the workplace, learning that is either formal, non-formal, informal or, in relation to what occurs more naturally in workplaces, all three. The authors have scanned international and New Zealand based literature from books, academic journals, and commissioned reports that discuss all aspects of workplace and related learning.

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The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the national thematic groups (NTG) project and its different tasks. Special attention will be given to a series of policy seminars and workshops with the social partners aiming at new policy developments in the field. Furthermore, the purpose of this presentation is also to introduce and share ideas and results with regard to the network Larena for exchange between scholars in the field of workplace learning.

Excerpt from introduction. Show less

This report takes a wide-ranging view of the learning and education of the First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples of Canada. The report introduces the Holistic Lifelong Learning Measurement Framework that is used to measure Indigenous learning in Canada. Chapter two examines the sources and domains of knowledge and includes various indicators of learning relating to language, culture, the natural world and family, Elders and community. Chapter three examines the entire lifelong learning journey across the entire lifespan and in the different environments of school, home, community, work and the land and looks at the various indicators related to learning at each life stage. Community well-being indicators are also included to highlight how various economic, social and health challenges can impact on learning opportunities. The report concludes with some future directions for Indigenous learning. Show less