101 Ways to Make Learning Active Beyond the Classroom

Informal Learning

Informal learning is the unofficial, impromptu, unscheduled way most people learn to do their jobs and almost everything in life. Some people estimate that informal learning is responsible for 70 to 80 percent of all learning that occurs on the job. That's logical because when we are at work, we spend at least 70 to 80 percent of our time doing our job and we are learning most of the time. Sometimes it's a very simple thing, like learning how to use a new function key on your laptop from the person who sits next to you. Sometimes it's by accident, like when you overhear a discussion in the hallway about a new project on a different floor. Sometimes you find a template on the company's intranet that makes your job easier—and ...