Friday, August 14, 2009

Informal Learning: An Interview With Dr Alan Thomas



This is the second in the series of videos commissioned by Education Otherwise.

Dr Thomas is a developmental psychologist, author and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Education. Interviewed at HESFES, Dr Thomas explains about his research into how children learn and his investigation into autonomous, or informal learning.

Visit http://www.education-otherwise.org for more information and subscribe to our channel http://www.youtube.com/EducationOtherwise

3 comments:

Stephanie said...

awesome, I'll link this on my blog too.

Positively Orphaned said...

Great video! I'm always looking for more scientific evidence.

Sandra Dodd said...

The three paragraphs below were posted on the Always Learning list by an unschooling mom:


I sent the above link to my Dad in South Africa yesterday and wanted to share his great response:

"The video was really interesting.. I realized that, because I hated structured, formal school, all I ever learned was what I taught myself! For instance when I went to the stock exchange I hadn't the faintest clue what fractions and decimals really meant, so I worked them out and pretty soon was able to calculate in a flash what for instance, 18/32 was in decimals, (0.5625) to make prices.. my old maths master would have been stunned because I never ever passed a maths exam!"

My dad left school early and went on to become a very successful stock broker, but insisted on very strict, formal education for his kids. Clearly he is still willing to learn and grow, and is now completely supportive of my choice to unschool mine. This revelation of his is really making me smile today.