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Although more formal forms of instruction such as the classroom and e-learning will be around for years, it’s becoming more and more important to watch and harness the more informal methodologies that our students are utilizing. Most of these methods have been around for years, but have gone unnoticed by the training community.

Informal methods of learning are often found right in the work environment. They are seen as techniques that a learner can take advantage of right away and with work-related resources. Another reason these methods are so popular is because they are often very short. Advanced learners tell us that they don’t have the time or budget to attend more formal learning. Even the immediacy of e-learning is seen as something that will take too much valuable time. Finally, learners have matured to a point where they want to drive their learning in a more meaningful and self-directed manner. These informal methods are seen as more student-driven and job-relevant than most formal options.

Two of the most common informal environments used today are e-communities and, of all things, the learners’ neighbors sitting all around them. E-communities, often called communities of practice, are made up of threaded message boards, frequently asked question (FAQ) Web sites and chat environments. They have existed under the radar screen of most training programs for years. Many have grown to have huge followings of subject-matter experts (SMEs) and super-users.

People acquire the skills they use at work informally — talking, observing others, trial-and-error, and simply working with people in the know.

Informal learning is the unofficial, unscheduled, impromptu way most people learn to do their jobs. Informal learning is like riding a bicycle: the rider chooses the destination and the route.

A new challenge for e-learning is to create collaborative learning spaces in which informal learning can thrive.

Stephanie Pace Marshall notes in her "Principles for the New Story of Learning." Learning is an incremental process of acquiring information. Learning should be credentialed by the amount of time spent acquiring information. The purpose of formal learning is to acquire information rapidly, cover content, and reproduce facts. Content segmentation is the more efficient and effective way to learn a discipline. Only that which can be quantitatively and easily measured is true knowledge. Competition and external rewards are the most powerful motivators for learning.

As organizations rapidly move their training focus to virtual environments, a proliferation of methods to support formal learning has appeared: teleconferencing, videoconferencing, e-meetings, and online courses