UNEVOC Connect

Learning: Any kind of intentional learning. It includes formal, non-formal and planned experiential learning and it may be carried out on instruction or independently. It may relate to activities, responsibilities, skills, procedures, knowledge or know-how and it may be designed to maintain, improve or extend existing academic, social or work-related capacities.

Knowledge is central to any discussion of learning and may be understood as the way in which individuals and societies apply meaning to experience. It can therefore be seen broadly as the information, understanding, skills, values and attitudes acquired through learning. As such, knowledge is linked inextricably to the cultural, social, environmental and institutional contexts in which it is created and reproduced. Learning is understood here to be the process of acquiring such knowledge. It is both a process and the result of that process; a means, as well as an end; an individual practice as well as a collective endeavour. Learning is multifaceted reality defined by the context. What knowledge is acquired and why, where, when and how it is used represent fundamental questions for the development of individuals and societies alike.

A process by which an individual assimilates information, ideas and values and thus acquires knowledge, know-how, information, values, skills and/or competences.

Comment

Learning occurs through personal reflection, reconstruction and social interaction. It may take place in formal, non-formal or informal settings.

The individual acquisition or modification of information, knowledge, understanding, attitudes, values, skills, competencies or behaviours through experience, practice, study or instruction.

The acquisition of knowledge, understanding, values, skills, competence and/or experience.

The process of acquiring and internalising a body of knowledge and/or a repertoire of skills and/or a set of behaviours, either through the experience of work and leisure or through an organised system of institutional learning through teaching and training.

The acquisition and mastery of knowledge, skills and competences through non-formal or formal, public or private, provided online, or in communities and life situations such as intergenerational, peer-based and self-directed learning. (Comment: this understanding of learning is directly influenced by the notion of lifelong learning.)