The marriage of informal learning and learner centricity

I visited the excellent Online Educa Berlin Conference last year and it seemed to me that there were two main subjects that were being discussed. One was informal learning and the other was what used to be called learner centricity. What was not discussed was how these two can really work well together.

It is now common to hear that informal learning “is all around us”, that we learn over 80% that way but that we spend almost nothing on it. OK got all that. Could we now start to discuss please how we should spend money on informal learning without making it formal learning like all the rest?

The other big topic at Berlin was that we should let go of the reins and let learners “learn their own way”. All this talk of learning management is too restrictive apparently and perhaps the famous e-learning completion rates bear this out. It is a fascinating thought – we make learning available in all its forms and varieties using every strategy we have ever known and then simply leave the learner to it. We were told that enabling learners to pull learning to them will be much more successful than learning being pushed at them. But isn’t that what we used to do when our open learning centres had tumbleweed blowing through?

I would like to suggest that it is not that difficult to marry informal learning and learner centricity. First you talk to the learners and find out what they want to learn, how they like to learn it and when it is most convenient and effective for them to do so. Then you design the learning (if that is what is required) to fit them and the way they work and learn. That way everyone wins. Discuss.