Despite growing need, geriatrics education has been slow to develop in higher education. Much of it is conducted in informal frameworks--for example, a study center of a national service organization for the elderly in Israel and a geriatrics institute in a hospital. Both formal and informal programs are needed. (SK)

Outlines components of workplace learning environments: individual/collective skill learning, learning to learn, and higher-order organizational learning. Suggests that studies counting only formal training discount older workers' participation in informal and work-based learning. Related learning environment characteristics to assumptions about…

Studies of informal and incidental learning demonstrate that it takes place wherever people have a need, motivation, or opportunity for learning. Context is central to the process. Despite its unstructured nature, adult educators can assist learners by identifying conditions that hinder or enhance it and by fostering critical reflection. (Contains…

Focuses on the way learning about genetics and evolution raises ideas that pupils and adults should relate to themselves whether what is learned helps reveal what science can and cannot say about human nature. Reviews the impact of informal learning after exploring the role and influence of informal learning channels. (Contains 79 references.)…

Adults do not learn science in the same way as either children or scientists. A separate theory of adult learning of science for scientific literacy is needed as the basis for the development of methodologies. (SK)

The distinction between formal and informal education is unhelpful. A reconceptualized concept of apprenticeship should reconcile the polarization between learner-centered and transmission approaches to instruction. (SK)

The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) commissioned this literature review as the first part of a project exploring issues around and approaches to working with Travellers, Irish Travellers, Gypsies, Roma and Showpeople, and the support, training and other programs available to staff involved. The project is intended to contribute to…

The author elaborates on informal learning in discussing staff development for volunteers. He suggests that ways be found to integrate classroom and on-the-job learning; that staff developers help people learn more effectively; and that learning be supported through job selection, organizational support, and a system of learning relationships and…

Dominant discourse about participation in adult education assumes that (1) participation is good; (2) participation equates with formal learning; (3) learners are individuals, abstracted from their social context; and (4) there are barriers to participation, not resistance. These assumptions obscure issues about informal learning, collective…

Adult participation in book discussion groups satisfies lifelong learning needs. The informal learning that takes place helps adults acquire self-knowledge and construct new meanings by connecting texts and life. (SK)

Reviews research on literacy in out-of-school settings, identifying conceptual advances in theories of literacy arising from nonschool research and highlighting recent research on literacy in out-of-schoolsettings. Discusses the implications of such research for teaching and learning in a range of contexts, including school. (SLD)

Nine studies that examined the use of referral reply letters that transferred information from specialists to referring physicians were analyzed. Although research indicates that physicians are receptive to such letters as sources of learning, little educational content was actually included in the letters. (Contains 39 references.) (SK)

Examines characteristics of informal outdoor education offered by youth programs and human services agencies. Discusses the nature of curriculum and whether it is necessary, relative emphasis on process or product, experiential learning, appropriate use of activities, the importance of dialog in stimulating critical thinking, and client reflection…

The paper synthesizes and analyzes research on the technique for nonprofessional tutoring of reading known as paired reading. Data from many extant small-scale studies are compared with the very large quantity of new data available from multisite field trials in one British local education authority. (SM)

Review of six studies of managers showed that much learning resulted from such factors as challenging job assignments, peer/supervisor relationships, community learning, family upbringing, life experiences, and organizational environment. Viewing humans merely as resources for economic development and ignoring this informal learning are neither…