Informal Learning for Children

EDU HT123 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Love and friendship, health and wealth, ethical and spiritual beliefs … we absorb so much of life’s essentials from friends and family, our communities, and the media – in other words, outside formal school. This course is an introduction to the world of informal learning: what it is, how it works, and how educators can harness it to help children and adolescents learn and prosper.
 
We engage with researchers, creative talent, and senior executives from Sesame Workshop, producers of Sesame Street, the most successful example of informal learning via media. We also study outstanding examples of in-person informal learning – museums, community centers, after-school programs, libraries, live action role-playing games, and summer camps – to help us develop concepts for new ventures.
 
You will learn how to conduct research on informal learning; how to identify and assess needs; how to design, test, and revise materials that are responsive to specific audiences and objectives; how to make diversity a fundamental component of the design process; and how to gauge the short- and longer-term impact of an intervention.
 
Learning activities include expert presentations, discussions, and field experiences. The capstone for the course, completed in small groups, is a proposal for a large-scale, multimedia-based informal learning project. Your group will determine your own objectives and target audience, develop a creative plan, and present your proposal orally to media, museum, and education experts, whose helpful feedback you can then incorporate into your final written proposal.
 
Project topic options will be announced in late Fall. Previous topics have included improving children's health and fitness, promoting civic engagement and political participation, developing print and digital literacy, and helping children and teens become wiser consumers.
 
This course meets every day during January term and requires full-time engagement. Open to all students, including cross-registrants. No prerequisites. Important information on preparing for HT-123 will be e-mailed to enrolled students in mid-December.