By James Oakley, eLearning Developer

I can vividly recall my first few days as a brand-new high school teacher, right at the tail end of a record hot August. There I stood, sweating, lecturing more than 35 students. As my lessons dragged on, I would see a gradual metamorphosis take place, from them attentively taking notes, to slowly losing concentration, to finally, the dreaded conclusion, stealthily looking at their phones, no longer interested at all in what I was saying.

All the time spent in my teacher program, the learning theories, the practice lessons, could not prepare me for this, the battle for a learner’s attention, and I admit it contributed to a large part of my early frustrations as a new educator.

After 4 long months of slogging through class after class, I reached my first professional breakthrough: If you are going to design a lesson, make sure the content is divided up into short, digestible sections.

Microlearning and the Forgetting Curve

I kept this lesson in mind as I transitioned into Instructional Design and adult training. It should come as no surprise that when I first heard of microlearning, I was an instant advocate of it. Microlearning is a style of learning that breaks apart content into lessons no longer than 10 minutes, with the idea of creating short periods of instruction where the learner’s attention can be more focused.

Microlearning seeks to remedy the issues presented in German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus’s “Forgetting Curve,” which shows us that most people will fail to retain most of the information they have learned over time if nothing is done to revisit or reinforce the material. According to Ebbinghaus, in one month it is expected that a learner will lose almost 80% of what they learned.

In the modern L&D world, issues with information retention are only exacerbated by overly long training sessions where the learner clicks through a mass of densely packed information. For many of these company trainings, these sessions are the first and last time an employee will be exposed to this information.

Once they receive their mark of completion that they’ve gone through a course, opportunities to revisit the content are few and far between. This is coupled with the fact that it is guaranteed that a learner’s attention will begin to diminish after more than an hour has elapsed while taking a course. For extremely important trainings, like when an employee is educated in essential job functions, it is vital that every measure is taken to ensure learner’s attention and retention.

How to appropriately utilize Microlearning

Before I take to the many benefits of microlearning and the ways it can be implemented into any company’s Learning & Development strategy (check out Evolve’s Learning Strategy Refresh eBook), I would be remiss if I did not discuss how it should best be utilized, as there are dos and don’ts to incorporating microlearning in your trainings.

The first thing to mention is microlearning is not a direct replacement for large training courses that provide a complex and in-depth understanding of a subject and cover a diverse array of material at once. This is called macrolearning in some circles. Facilitating a complete microlearning overhaul would ensure scalability issues right from its inception. Dividing up preexisting courses into microlearning trainings almost guarantees hundreds if not thousands of different trainings a learner would have to take, not to mention the time and resources it would take for training department or design house to restructure said trainings to not only be stand-alone lessons but also fit into a greater curriculum. These factors, on top of the edits and updates that would need to be implemented, as well as figuring out which employees will receive these lessons, ensure that microlearning is not a total solution.

Microlearning should be intended as a supplement for macrolearning trainings. Once a larger course is complete microlearning sessions can be assigned for the learner to revisit key pieces of content, or to reassess understanding of a particular topic. Microlearning can also come into play for a learner to access information on demand. If they have some confusion about a particular procedure or job-related task, they can quickly retrieve a mini lesson concerning that topic and within minutes have the knowledge they were looking for, effectively serving as a more job-specific Google Search.

How Microlearning can be best Implemented

Microlearning lessons work best when focusing on single learning objectives and when it allows the learner a degree of flexibility when engaging with the instruction. Microlearning should not replace macrolearning trainings, instead consider where microlearning can best fit into current training materials. Perhaps microlearning trainings can be created as ‘reminder’ trainings for certain employees when they need to recall a specific part of information on the job, or after a lengthy onboarding training, microlearning can be implemented to cover the broad brushstrokes of what was originally covered and offer small exams to continually assess the employee and keep the information fresh in their head.

Due to its short, focused nature, it’s crucial to consider how microlearning trainings should be best delivered. Keeping flexibility in mind, this type of training would be perfect for the smartphone. It is for this reason that the terms ‘microlearning’ and ‘mobile learning’ are practically synonymous. It is a much easier request to ask an employee to log in to a learning app on their smartphone and take a 5-minute course than having them repeat that same task on the computer. Using the smartphone, these courses could be theoretically completed anywhere—imagine having a learner meaningfully absorbing information while in line at the bank, waiting in the dentist’s office, or even while they are going for a morning stroll. This way, learning and convenience converge harmoniously.

To keep the learner engaged, make sure the microlearning trainings are designed as varied and interactive as possible. Courses should be diverse and offer something new for the learner each time, whether it be a short instructional video, added elements of gamification, or micro-lectures. The best part – the brevity of the content can provide great opportunities for Instructional Designers to exercise their creativity.

Conclusion

In conclusion, microlearning is an exciting, viable addition to regular training and combats the common failure to create content that our learners can and will retain. With its easy integration into smartphones

and the mobile learning sphere, it is a form of instruction the L&D world should consider seriously as a part of their blended learning strategy. Need help with your learning strategy? Schedule a consult here!