Integrating Informal Learning With School Programs at the Secondary Level

Since the beginning of the 21st century, digital applications, smartphones, online gaming, cloud computing, and social media have become rapidly woven into everyday life. This is especially true for today’s youths (digital learners) who thrive on opportunities to express themselves through social and digital media. Glen Bull and his colleagues detailed that the growth of digital media has led to varied and creative platforms for youths to express themselves, whether through social networking, video and image creation and editing sites, blogs, or wikis. The challenge for educators is to find opportunities to bridge academic content to this enthusiasm for authentic learning outside the classroom through informal learning. This entry defines informal learning, discusses its benefits in particular fields, and explains how secondary school instructors can integrate informal learning with school programs.

David Livingstone defined informal learning as any activity that takes place outside of preexisting educational agencies and involves the pursuit of knowledge or skills. The targeted learning process is controlled and directed by the individual or a group. As described by Etienne Wenger, educational agencies, and specifically K–12 schools, are no longer the central focus of learning, where students acquire information and skill sets to be applied in the real world. Rather, they are a smaller part of a larger learning system. In an informal context, living and working provide authentic learning experiences; the learning that takes place in classrooms and training centers should support the authentic learning experiences that take place outside the classroom and vice versa.

Informal learning is often offered to students in the form of after-school programs or extracurricular activities. Such social learning experiences can also become opportunities for students to develop communities of practice, which help students design their own identities and establish a path of personal and professional interests. There are numerous advantages to including informal learning experiences for students inside or outside the classroom, especially using the plethora of instructional technology tools currently available to educators or any other professional wanting to mentor high school students. Richard Sterling noted that some of the reasons informal learning opportunities are left out of school programs include time constraints, pressures to cover learning objectives, lack of best practice models or training, and limited access to online applications.