• Overview
• Research Centers
• Research Reports
• Research Areas
• Research Support

Research

That Matters

"Informal" learning occupies more than 80 percent of young learners' waking hours. But does it have any place in their "formal" brick-and-mortar K-12 school setting?

Researchers at the UW LIFE Center (Learning in Informal and Formal Environments) argue that it does. "Your success at school is based as much on conversations at the dinner table and community center as it is on what you learn in schools," says John Bransford, founding director of LIFE and the Shauna C. Larson Endowed Chair in Learning Sciences at the College
of Education. "We're putting all that together."

LIFE researchers examine learning that is lifelong (acquisition of information over time), lifewide (how people adapt to new situations), and lifedeep (beliefs shaped by religious, moral, social, and ethical values).

They explore this learning across a broad spectrum of projects, from pre-kindergarten science lessons leveraged on children's experiences in nature to alternative strategies for adult workplace learning at The Boeing Company.
"The kind of learning experienced during problem-focused small group work at Boeing is twice as broad and deep as that taken away from a lecture ," says Nancy Vye, LIFE Center Faculty Lead and College of Education research scientist. The work by LIFE Center researchers demonstrates how investment in basic research can turn into applied research that makes a difference in students' lives.

Philip Bell, a Director of the LIFE center and the Geda and Phil Condit Professor of Science and Math Education, says that "the learning experiences of youth that take place in and out of school are largely not coordinated."

Making connections between everyday, everywhere learning and classroom instruction can serve a wider, more diverse group of students over a lifetime, the UW research suggests. Knowledge walks out the schoolroom door every day, but it also walks in — in the form of new languages, new cultures, new experiences, new ideas. Valuing that breadth of knowledge can reduce the gaps between marginalized and mainstream students. "We have to respect, in a foundational way, that people bring something to the situation," says Vye. "You want to listen to them and build on their knowledge."

Issue Contents