Social Learning

Social learning is the principle — rooted in Albert Bandura's social learning theory — that people learn a great deal by observing, interacting with and imitating others, not only through formal instruction. In a digital context it spans discussion forums, peer feedback, communities of practice, collaborative projects, mentoring, user-generated content and commenting. It is often summarised in the '70-20-10' model, where roughly 70% of learning comes from on-the-job experience, 20% from interaction with others, and 10% from formal courses. Social learning recognises that much workplace knowledge is tacit and passed person-to-person, and modern LMS and learning-experience platforms increasingly build in social features so this informal knowledge can be captured, shared and scaled across a whole organisation rather than lost.