Free choice, or informal, learning describes how both children and adults learn more than 90% of the time. According to the Institute for Learning Innovation, an organization studying free choice learning in museum environments, free choice learning is “the most common type of lifelong learning…self-motivated and guided by the needs and interests of the learner." It’s the way people who believe they have a choice in what they learn, and how, when, where and why they learn, acquire information and knowledge. And it’s the most enduring way to learn anything.
Free Choice Learning Research
The Oregon Sea Grants Free Choice Learning Initiative is one of the leading free-choice learning research efforts, and the University of Oregon’s Hatfield Marine Science Center has operated as a proving ground the university’s research into self-paced “leisure-time learning” for several years now. Museums, science centers, zoos and other educational-recreational facilities are, in fact, where a lot of leisure time learning happens, and the best place to explore how we learn about the things that pique our curiosity.
According to the American Association of Museums, there are about 850 million visits annually to our more than 16,000 U.S. museums. That’s a lot of potential learning opportunities that the University of Oregon and others believe can be more effectively tapped to enhance visitors’ experiences.
Learning all the Time
But we don’t just learn informally in museums, explains John Falk, director of the Institute of Learning Innovation. We also learn from libraries, television, film, books, newspaper, radio, online, and other people. The Internet in particular has opened up a treasure trove of informal learning opportunities, from free online learning initiatives like MITs open courseware to educational wikis, TED Talks and Kahn Academy, and open source textbooks.
“Free-choice learning is so common,” he says, “ that we have taken it for granted, despite its being as vital as the learning that occurs in school and in the workplace.”
More important, Falk and other free choice learning advocates say, informal learning is at the heart of meaningful learning because it is intentional and interest driven.
The Edupunk Movement
Edupunks are ordinary people taking education into their own hands using Web 2.0 tools, as Utne Reader described the movement in Meet the Edupunks (July-August 2010). Edupunks herald a new age in autodidactism where people are active participants in their education, using 21st century technology.
At the heart of being an edupunk is curiosity, a trait edupunks and other self-directed learners often value above “degrees” as a mark of academic excellence. No less than Harvard blogger Michael Shrage has pointed out that are“ serious gaps between elite educational credentials and actual individual competence.”
"The grievously undervalued human capital issue here isn’t quality education in school, “ says Shrage,” but quality of skills in markets.”
Free choice learning via mentors and apprenticeships, as well as DIY (Do it Yourself) and other informal learning experiences naturally help develop skills that no classroom setting can equal. Expanding access to free choice learning opportunities, as well as recognizing it as a viable way to learn, can bring more enduring and useful skills based knowledge to more people everywhere.
Theresa Willingham - My goal, as a writer and photographer, is to create thought provoking and informative content that inspires community engagement, and ...
