Informal learning

In today’s digitally connected world we are constantly acquiring new personal knowledge and skills, discovering new methods of work and ways to earn a living, solving problems, and changing the way we create, access and share information, through informal learning. The topic of informal learning can be discussed in many different contexts and from a variety of theoretical perspectives. For the purposes of this chapter, informal learning is examined through the lens of lifelong learning and performance, primarily as it relates to adult learners. Jay Cross (2007) may be credited for popularizing the term “informal learning”, although he claimed to have first heard it from Peter Henschel sometime during the mid-1990s, who at the time was director of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL), when he said: