Thursday 12 October 2017

informal learning > learning from experience

We don't give enough consideration to 'experience' when learning:


Learning is experience. Everything else is just information. - Albert Einstein at Lifehack Quotes

Academics are taking it more seriously:
Global Perspectives on Recognising Non-formal and Informal Learning - Why Recognition Matters

As is business:
Experience curve effects - Wikipedia
The concept of common sense in workplace learning and experience | Education + Training | Vol 43, No 2

It seems that older people can benefit from their experience:
Cognitive Skills at 45: Middle-Aged Brain More Resilient | TIME.com

On the one hand, we have the environmentalist viewpoint which contends that insofar as intelligence is a product of learning, it should increase throughout life, in other words, intelligence should improve with learning and experience. If tests do not show this, it is argued, then something is wrong with the tests. On the other hand, we have the biological approach which compares intelligence to growth in stature. It should grow up to the late teens, then remain stable for some years and eventually decline. These two positions are broad reflections of the well-known nature/nurture controversy which has tended to dominate the literature on intelligence over the years.

It is commonplace in the literature on adult education to read about older people compensating for the decline in quickness by substituting this experience and judgement. However, Schaie and Parr30 have recently put forward the view that different stages of life might actually call for different learning abilities. School learning, with its emphasis on acquisition rather than application, capitalises on the strengths of young people. The processing and acquisition of large amounts of new information in the traditional school manner is, however, disadvantageous to older learners. The Educational model that would be appropriate for adults would be one in which emphasis was placed upon integration, interpretation and application of knowledge.

Old dogs - new tricks: a look at learning and memory in the older adult

After all, our brains are 'plastic':
Lifelong learning and the plastic brain | University of Cambridge
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