Informal Learning for Teachers’ Professional Development at School: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Professional environment has changed dramatically during recent decades: it has become more dynamic, more complex and less structured. These changes are also applied to schools where teachers are required to work more with students and are given new responsibilities relating to management of the school. Also, the role of teachers in the classroom and the requirements for assessing teachers’ professional performance have changed significantly. Formal learning carried out in a structured, purpose-led process usually does not meet the real needs of teachers’ professional development, does not improve teachers’ professional performance in classroom and does not have direct positive influence on students’ learning outcomes. The formal learning of teachers is organised outside the real context teachers work in and does not allow them to reflect on their experience. Informal learning is offered as an alternative form of teachers’ professional development that includes individual and collective learning activities which are carried inside or outside the school and are based on learning from other professionals, participating in informal conversations or sharing experience without a specific learning goal and process manager. The aim of the literature review is to summarize the theoretical approaches of informal learning, focusing on several aspects of informal learning for teachers’ professional development: different ways how informal learning can be implemented inside the school; factors that promote and hinder teachers’ professional development through informal learning; the benefits and risks faced by teachers who are improving their professional competence by engaging in informal learning activities.