Linking formal and informal learning - Bryan Hopkins

People learn in many different ways, perhaps through formal means such as attending workshops or studying on-line courses, or through informal means such as talking things through with colleagues or reflecting on their own practice.

But in many organisations learning is seen to be the responsibility of a training department which limits its remit to providing formal courses. Of course, by definition informal learning is hard to organise, but there is much that training professionals can do in designing and delivering formal training events which can help to encourage informal learning: for example, through helping to develop informal learning networks or communities of practice.

During 2015 I carried out research with five different international organisations to explore what factors within the delivery of traditional training workshops could help to promote the establishment of subsequent social learning networks amongst participants. The key factor turned out to be trust: that if you design a workshop in such a way that participants can come to trust each other, then it makes it more likely that they will stay in contact after the event to share knowledge and learn from each other.

Of course, there is more to developing informal learning networks than this, but anyone interested in learning more is invited to contact me for more information.