Interviews with 16 apprentices and 8 trainers focused on the extent to which they perceive the workplace as a learning environment. A clash between production and learning goals meant learning was undervalued and incidental to the process of production. This jeopardizes the development of continuous learning attitudes. (SK)

Supervisors who are effective facilitators use their own learning and interpersonal skills to encourage informal learning in work teams. Use of facilitation skills can be inhibited by lack of organizational support and reluctance to change power relationships. (Contains 66 references.) (SK)

Argues that adult educators use "learning" when they mean "education" and that this confounds and demeans incidental and informal learning processes. Suggests that intended, purposeful planned learning should properly be termed education and that there is no such thing as a nonlearner. (SK)

Generic Learning Outcomes (GLOs) are intended to enable cultural heritage organisations to be aware of the effectiveness of the environment for learning that they provide and to provide quantitative evidence of the impact of museums libraries and archives on learning, nationally. This paper presents a logical critique of their strengths and…

The study that informs this article investigated how online learners' participation in and perception of their sense of learning community contributed to or affected their relationship to their workplace environment and their workplace colleagues. The findings support contentions that, in the workplace, the work itself constitutes the most…

Purpose: This paper discusses insights from a study of women working, or seeking or preparing for work, in the information technology (IT) field. At issue is how and whether alternative career pathways and informally acquired skills and knowledge, as well as the operation of gender in learning and work, are acknowledged by employers, colleagues…

Explores to what extent and for which visitors do free-choice learning settings accomplish their educational mission. Uses data collected at the National Aquarium in Baltimore to determine whether grouping makes it possible to discern the nature of changes in aquarium visitors' conservation knowledge and attitudes. Discusses the effects of learner…

Interviews in two technology-intensive Finnish companies (banking and engineering) found that workplace learning was continuous and active. Learning stimuli and competence development differed in two settings. A more systematic, long-term approach to learning and acknowledgment of collective competence could improve the work environment as a…

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…

From interviews and site visits with 22 teachers, four environmental inhibitors to informal workplace learning emerged: lack of time for learning, lack of proximity to learning resources, lack of meaningful rewards, and limited decision-making power in school management. Ways to facilitate teachers' learning include strategic classroom…

Free-choice learning and, derivatively, free-choice environmental learning emerges as a powerful vehicle for supporting diversity in learning styles (Falk and Dierking, 2002). In this article, I argue that free-choice environmental learning holds great potential for enabling us to understand what is at stake in environmental learning and thus help…

Discusses the cognitive consequences of education, and reviews evidence which supports the hypothesis that differences in the social organization of education promote differences in the organization of learning and thinking skills in the individual. Proposes that new accommodations are needed between school-based learning and learning experiences…

Richard Lewis, founder and director of the Touchstone Center (New York City), discusses how the move toward national education standards works against individualism and expressive learning. He suggests that teachers get so involved in meeting standards and goals that they fail to obey the natural laws of learning. (LP)

Findings from four studies offer insights to camp staff on helping campers learn from their experiences. The studies examined young children's perceptions of time-out, intentional systematic strategies that children can use to resolve conflicts, types of feedback and their effects on motivation, and how brain functions determine the effectiveness…

Aims to acquire better understanding of how informal learning experiences may interface with classroom science instruction by investigating one aspect of science learning, that of scientific reasoning ability. Investigates possible differences in students' scientific reasoning abilities relative to their informal learning environments, classroom…