Enhancing Self-Reflective Practice and Conscious Service in the Helping Professions

This chapter highlights the results and the implications of research that was conducted with a group of mental health practitioners involved in an eight-week educational program designed to help establish and enhance self-reflective practice. The study elicited a number of emerging themes related to the benefits of self-reflective practice in the helping professions. The research project took place within the context of a professional setting; however, emphasis and value was placed upon the informal learning experiences of the participants. While there were a number of findings and recommendations obtained through this research project, the main focus for this chapter centers on the role of informal learning as an element of the research project design and ultimately as an integral component of self-reflective practice. The highlighted results include two elements of the findings related to curriculum design and effective facilitative strategies that might be helpful to adult educators involved in post-secondary education as well as continuing education and professional development activities with an emphasis on maximizing the benefits of informal learning.

Informal Learning as Group Meaning-Making

Very few researchers have considered peer-initiated online communities as sites where informal learning takes place. The goal in this chapter is to expand and enrich the conceptualization of informal learning by positioning it as a group meaning-making process rather than an individual cognitive product. The authors begin the chapter by providing an overview of the opportunities adults have to engage in informal learning through asynchronous conversations in online communities. Then, they summarize current conceptualizations of informal learning and the approaches researchers have used to examine it, noting both their potential and limitations. The authors synthesize the research they have conducted on online learning conversations over the last eight years and present their model of informal learning as a group meaning-making process.

Social Capital and Community Development

This chapter explores the types of informal learning that take place as women participate in adult literacy programs, community development projects, and as they use social capital in three states in south-western Nigeria. The data used for this study were extracted from a recent research work titled “Effect of Literacy Education and Social Capital on Rural Women's Involvement in Community Development in Southwestern Nigeria.” Three states were selected from the southwestern Nigeria, two Local Government Areas (LGAs) were selected from each of the three states, and two rural communities were also selected from each of the selected local government areas by random sampling technique. From each of the rural communities, 60 rural women were randomly selected, making a total number of 720 respondents. A structured questionnaire, an in-depth interview guide, and focus group discussion were used to collect data. The women attributed the informal learning documented to the relationship they formed during the period they attended literacy classes and participated in community development projects.

Personal Interaction and Informal Learning

Although the importance of casual and spontaneous personal interaction in informal learning is generally well acknowledged, less is known about which world regions or countries have cultures of personal interaction that foster these characteristics. This information is important because without it policymakers struggle to select appropriate actions to improve learning and education. In this case study of China, the authors investigate the characteristics of personal interaction there and consider their effects on informal learning. They present a systematic reflection on the literature about the culture of personal interaction in China and how these interaction practices facilitate informal learning. China is strongly influenced by Confucianism, which with other cultural practices such as guanxi (??), shapes personal relations in unique ways that have important implications for informal learning. The authors hope that this analysis sets a precedent for future studies about China and other parts of the world.

On Informal Learning, Informal Teaching, and Informal Education

Informal learning has always been part of humankind, but only in recent decades has it attracted the attention of educational researchers. This chapter examines four challenges (conceptual, methodological, institutional, and pedagogical) related to informal learning. The section on the conceptual challenge addresses the distinctions between informal learning, informal teaching, and informal education, and identifies three forms of informal learning: self-directed, incidental, and tacit. The section on the methodological challenge discusses the difficulties of researching informal learning (particularly incidental and tacit forms), describes an approach to elicit informal learning, and presents a critical analysis of its strengths and limitations. The section on the institutional challenge discusses issues related to the assessment and recognition of informal learning. Finally, the section on the pedagogical challenge highlights the potential of informal education to nurture informal learning.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

This chapter reviews the common themes that run through the volume. The authors review the relationship between informal learning and adult and higher education and how the research and writing on informal learning contributes to adult and higher education. They pay attention to how informal learning plays a role in independent learning projects, self-directed leaning, and transformative learning. The common themes that run through this chapter include learning experiences, contexts of learning, processes and strategies, outcomes of informal learning, and to a lesser extent, critical perspectives and cultural issues. The authors describe how the chapters contribute to each of these themes. They also speculate on the future directions of research, theory development, and practical applications related to informal learning.

Integration of Informal Learning Theory and Practice into the Study of Implementation in Healthcare Contexts

This chapter provides a workplace learning perspective that acknowledges informal learning with which to understand, research, and successfully foster implementation theory and evidence-based practice into the medical workplace. The methodology used includes literature review and use of case examples from this author's previous work in informal learning in healthcare settings. Specifically, a model of informal learning in medical workplaces is reviewed followed by a discussion of the Active Implementation Framework (Fixsen et al., 2005). Last, informal learning's role in implementing evidence-based practices is explored in light of the models presented. Financial implications of the model are briefly explored.

Adult Health Learning

This chapter develops the practice and theory of adult health learning, a unique and critical approach to informal learning about health in the community. The author takes the position that a collective analysis of power, ideology, and resistance is important to addressing inequities in health, and that the adult educator has a strategic role in facilitating informal learning and change around the many factors that affect health including geography, economy, employment, and transportation. The chapter details many of the contributions that adult education can bring to an understanding and practice of informal learning for health.

Informal Learning Contributes to the Leadership Development of Nurse Managers

This chapter aligns with this book's purpose to highlight the incidents of informal learning in a variety of settings. The focus of this chapter is on the experiential and informal learning that emerged from a recent study of the workplace leadership development of nurse managers in the United States. This study used a grounded-theory methodology and was based on 19 semi-structured interviews of current and previous nurse managers in two healthcare organizations. The findings focus on the informal learning of nurse managers and how these findings fit into and contribute to the existing literature in adult education on informal workplace learning. Subsequently, the author describes a proposed theory of the informal/experiential learning aspects that contributed to the nurses' role transitions in this study. This chapter will shed new light on the healthcare context as a place of immense informal learning and the informal learning of nurses.

How Pre-Service and First-Year Teachers Utilize Informal Learning in a Work Context

Pre-service candidates enroll in teacher preparation programs to learn the knowledge, skills, and abilities that teachers must possess. Throughout their education program, they apply their classroom learning to clinical experiences, those experiences that pre-service candidates have with K-12 students. These clinical experiences provide a hands-on approach to what the day-to-day mechanics will be once they become a teacher of record. Succeeding graduation and receiving a teaching degree, pre-service candidates still have more to learn as they make the transition from pre-service candidate to a novice teacher. This chapter focuses on the informal learning that pre-service candidates and novice teachers receive when they conduct student teaching and become a teacher of record. Background knowledge of the trajectory of learning starting with teacher education programs and ending with the first years of teaching is provided along with issues, controversies, and problems that affect pre-service candidates and novice teachers' competencies to fulfill the duties of teaching.