Formal, Nonformal, or Informal Education for Ag. Extension?

The terms formal, nonformal, and informal are important for anyone working at any level of education to understand. As someone who strives to work in the agricultural extension field, I foresee myself drawing upon the distinctions between these levels of education for developing effective educational plans. In purposefully designing workshop and lesson plans to fit into these categories, we can reach learners in a more diverse way, ensuring that we utilize more of the modalities of learning, more frequently. 

Coombs (1973) defines formal education as “the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded educational system running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialized programs and institutions for full-time technical and professional training”. Formal education is often in the forefront of most education based discussion.

Nonformal education is more learner centered than formal education. The learner educator relationship in nonformal education is less hierarchical and is often set up in a way that allows learners to leave when material is not relevant or engaging for them, at no risk of consequence. Teaching content in nonformal educational settings is often directed to unique needs or interests of the student. This type of education most often fits under programs such as 4-H, scouts, and extension.

Informal education is used to define learning from everyday experiences. It is unplanned and not organized. This learning method has the potential to be extremely engaging and effective for learning new material. By definition, if learning from everyday experiences was utilized in a lesson plan, it would then become non-formal, but no matter the definition, it has proven to be a very effective method of learning.

Many of my own times of rapid and concrete learning have come while at the work place. As we see in the learning pyramid, student content retention rates are dramatically higher from practicing or doing something than from hearing a lecture about a topic. Practice doing is often the informal type of education that happens with hands-on experience at the workplace, during discussions with friends and strangers, and when children play. The mechanisms for learning that are so effective from informal learning, can be easily and purposefully incorporated into nonformal and formal education. This is frequently seed in secondary vocational programs that utilize all three forms of education.

Extension education is usually targeting learners who are not used to sitting in a class room. They choose to come to workshops and meetings that they think will be useful for bettering their business. The time that they take away from their business is a sacrifice. As educators we should do our best to make that sacrifice worth the while. This should be done by intentionally developing exercises with demonstration, discussion, and hands-on experiences. While all of these teaching tools are important for reaching our audience, flexibility is perhaps the most important tool or attribute to use in extension education. In order to effectively share information with learners it is important to be observant of what they are interested in learning and observing to see if your teaching methods are engaging. This flexibility, observation, and willingness to adapt is crucial for any educational setting, whether it be formal, nonformal, or informal.

Etling A. 1993. What is Nonformal Education? Journal of Agricultural Education. 34:4, 72-76.

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