The loss and rebuilding of ambient learning
28 Apr 2026
In this moment:
Dan Moore
In a conversation recently with Dan Moore, we spoke about many things on a soon to be released episode of Into the MoTaverse, but one I'm reflecting on is the idea of ambient learning.
Ambient learning is the incidental, informal acquisition of knowledge that happens as a byproduct of being present in a shared environment. It shows up as overhearing a conversation, watching a colleague solve a problem, seeing a question asked and answered in a public channel. Nobody is explicitly teaching and nobody is explicitly studying. The learning happens in the background, absorbed through proximity and participation. It's a form of social learning that shouldn't be forgotten.
Ambient learning is the incidental, informal acquisition of knowledge that happens as a byproduct of being present in a shared environment. It shows up as overhearing a conversation, watching a colleague solve a problem, seeing a question asked and answered in a public channel. Nobody is explicitly teaching and nobody is explicitly studying. The learning happens in the background, absorbed through proximity and participation. It's a form of social learning that shouldn't be forgotten.
"The fact that I can get an answer against our code base by asking GitHub Copilot as opposed to asking a dev means that yes, I get my answer quicker, but it also means I don't build that relationship with the developer to answer that question. And I don't ask it in a public place so that other people can kind of ambiently pick that up." — Dan Moore
Ambient learning was massively reduced when the world went remote in 2020. It has been reduced even further with AI. When the default is to get answers quickly, we need to think about what we lose. We can spend time being sad about it, that's valid, but it's also valid to get our thinking hats on and be intentional about creating new ways of operating.
Some ideas to implement ambient learning in a modern sense:
- Public-first communication norms: for example, defaulting to open channels over DMs so questions and answers are visible to the whole team
- "Working out loud" practices where people narrate what they're doing, what they're stuck on, and what they figured out, in shared spaces
- Shared decision logs or architecture decision records (ADRs) so reasoning is captured and findable.
- Pull request commentary that are helpful and educational.
- Encourage sharing of resources, documentation, tips and things like AI prompts
- Ask and research first, then follow up with conversations, this will save everyone time, whilst also giving people the confidence that their knowledge and understanding is correct.
- Normalise asking questions, it's important for people to lead by example for this kind of thing
- Brown bag lunches or informal demos where people share something they learned or built
- Show and tell sessions, to help the team level up together
- Retrospectives to surface knowledge and create understanding
- Local meetups, whilst not always directly work related, getting back to local events, making the effort to connect can be just what we need to re-energise ourselves.
There can be a real sense of loss when we lose how we use to be, but at the same time, many of us have gained, and most of us don't want to go back to in office work. Personally, I don't think I could work in an office again, doing it occassionally, or going places 1-2 times per month is what makes it manageable for me. We must also recognise that office environments, for the neurodivergent and many disabled people, are really not healthy environments. So whilst, we might miss some of the older ways of naturally learning, we can also create new ways, that are more accomodating for all.
It won't happen by accident, and we all need to do our bit to find the balance for the teams we work within. We can rebuild ambient learning for the modern world.
Do share any tips you may have. :)
Rosie Sherry
CEO & Founder at Ministry of Testing
She/Her
I've been working in the software testing and quality engineering space since the year 2000 whilst also combining it with my love for education and community. It turns out quality, community and education go nicely hand in hand.
🎓 MoT-STEC qualified
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