The technological changes which are influencing the way we work are also having an impact on the way we learn and microlearning, which is a resultant of these technological changes, has advanced and will continue to deepen its roots in the world of learning.
What is microlearning?
Microlearning as a concept was first presented in an Austrian diploma thesis in 2004. (source:https://microlearning.org/research/).
All my discerned readers will be aware that microlearning is a method of delivering learning content in tiny, bite-sized modules which fulfill a particular learning objective. Microlearning has become very popular for the workplace training because of the benefits it offers like the increased accessibility, higher engagement levels and greater learning effectiveness over other forms of learning strategies may it be classroom training or e-learning.
As the title says the numbers don’t lie, let’s explore what story do the numbers have to tell about microlearning.
1.Just twenty four minutes to learn
The modern learner has just 24 minutes a week to spend on training and development according to new research by Deloitte, which roughly corresponds to 1% of a typical work week. As per the research the learners are distracted and impatient and want to access content just in time. Hence they use search engines and their smart phones to find answers to any problems they face on the job.
What does this mean for organizations?
Organizations need to design their learning strategy which is majorly focused around microlearning.
2.Let the content be ideally below 9 minutes
Philip Guo, an assistant professor of Computer Science at the University of Rochester at the time, looked at usage statistics for an online learning.
His findings say that the length of the content matters and he suggests that the learning content should be below 9 minutes to ensure that the learners are hooked to the learning topics
How is this statistics related to microlearning?
1. While there are no fixed guidelines or rules that speaks about the duration of the microlearning modules, an ideal microlearning nugget is usually 3-5 minutes of average duration which helps the organisation to ensure that the learners are hooked to the learning topics.
2.Microlearning modules can ideally include videos,animations, pdfs, interactive infographics, micro games that are shorter in duration to engage the learners.
3.People have a small window of patience—roughly 9 to 11 minutes and they seek to finish tasks in that time
We presently live in a world where technology is growing at a blazing speed. From the mobile phones with big antennas, we have now evolved to smartphones that can do almost all the process of a computer or laptop. With the growing technology and speed, I feel that our patience has reduced a lot. For example, a slow loading website makes the customer quit the site and proceed to another one. This shows the changing trend among the learners with having lesser patience.
How is this statistics related to microlearning?
1.The smaller duration of microlearning modules keeps the patience of the learners under check
2.Every microlearning nugget has individual learning objective that can be achieved within the short duration of the module thus allowing the learners to finish the task on time
4.75% of organisations surveyed by Hive Learning expect to use a mobile platform for learning from the year 2018
This means that the organisations are slowly starting to adapt mobile learning where the learning is expected to happen on mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and iPads etc. Hence we expect that mobile learning is the future.
How is it related to microlearning?
Organisations can utilize such platforms for pushing the microlearning content to the learners thus enabling the learners to access the content from anywhere and any device.
5..Millennials are expected to replace the workforce by 2020
The Millennial generation has proved to have short attention spans (Santos, 2017; Sharma, 2016). Millennials want a program that they can spend just a few minutes on a day and don’t want to waste too much time on one single task.
Some of the important reasons for choosing microlearning as the best strategy is
•Millennials learn best in short, digestible chunks that they can quickly absorb.
•Millennials respond better to “animations, videos and other moving images.” These teaching tactics are especially important when trying to highlight key points.
•Millennials were raised using mobile devices, and expect that they can take everything on the go, including their lessons.
6.67% of employees believe they must continuously reskill themselves to stay in their
Career
With today’s complex business environment and evolving technologies, it is critical that employees continue to learn and improve and hence as we see today, continual learning at the workplace has become an important parameter that defines the growth rate and success of an organization as well as an individual.
How is this statistics related to microlearning?
Microlearning is an effective elearning strategy that an organisation can implement to ensure that there is continual learning.
1.For example, microlearning can be delivered even before the actual learning starts to prepare the learners for the learning. Small microlearning videos, which are precursors to the learning modules can stimulate and motivate the learners to take it up.
2.Microlearning games and activities can keep the learners engaged to continue with the learning process and can act as performance support tools or sometimes even as a quick reference.
3.The smaller duration of the micro modules can motivate and engage the learners to continue the learning and to reskill without any cognitive overload.
7. An average mobile phone user checks their device 150 times a day
We live in a world of mobile apps, a small beep sound from our mobile phone can distract us to look into the screen of the mobile devices which proves that mobile devices have become an indispensable unit for a human being.
How is it related to microlearning?
The ease of using mobile devices like smartphones, tablets ,ipads etc helps the organisation to train the employees effectively through the mobile devices by pushing microlearning nuggets through the devices of the learners
The learners have greater control over the learning process compared to the traditional training technique. With mobile learning, the increasing mobile workforce can continue the learning process anytime and from any mobile device like smartphones,tablets, ipads etc.
