Distance learning: effectiveness, challenges, and implementation

Pat Galagan's "Unformal is the new normal"

According to editor-at-large of T&D Magazine Pat Galagan's September 2010 article entitled "Unformal [learning] is the new normal," learning in the modern workplace can no longer be confined to learning in the classroom. While some types of educational attainments (such as getting an undergraduate degree) may involved standardized processes and be confined to a particular period in an individual's life, the act of learning can and must be a lifelong endeavor. To thrive in today's modern workplace, informal learning is necessary. Formal education may have been required for the type of static jobs in the industrial world of the 1950s but in a more flexible, ever-changing, and technologically forward world, a new approach to learning is demanded. Today's learning is more based upon immediate workplace needs rather than a standardized curriculum because technology changes too fast for the individual to ever be fully prepared for the workplace within the classroom alone.

Both losses and gains are to be derived from this emphasis on informal learning. On one hand, informal learning can be less disciplined and serious. Reflecting on my own, personal attempts in informal learning, I must admit that the formal direction of a teacher or coach has been very helpful in disciplining me to learn over the years. I am much more inclined to push myself in a workout, for example, if I have to meet a certain goal and a coach is standing next to me. I doubt I would have ever suffered through the tedium of basic calculus if I did not have a taskmaster in the form of a teacher. I am glad that I did learn the subject, but I know that I could not have done so informally, nor would I have performed at such a high level.

However, in some instances I have found that informal learning can be superior to formal learning. When learning a foreign language or a mechanical skill, the value of learning something 'in the field' rather than in the classroom can be valuable. Informal learning makes it easier to understand the application of a skill to real life, and if there is no standardized syllabus, the learner can tailor the learning process to his or her specific needs. This may be why informal workplace learning has been found so beneficial for organizations such as Intel. A learner can assimilate the information most pertinent to his or her job description. Informal workplace learning also allows the learner to learn on the job, without taking valuable training time out of the workday.

However, there is also a dark side to informal workplace learning. If the learner's time and effort in acquiring new skills is not compensated with added credentials on paper, it can be difficult to prove his or her ability to learn new things, unlike a degree, which is transferable when or she changes jobs. Transferability of skills is still easier with formal learning from a worker's point-of-view. With personal enrichment-type informal learning this is less of an issue, but it is unlikely that informal learning on the job will ever take the place of formal learning.