Choosing Microlearning for Your L&D Strategy in 2022? Here’s What You Need to Consider
At a time when learners have a lot on their plate and anything more can simply overwhelm them, organizations are increasingly looking at Microlearning as a go-to strategy for creating engaging learning solutions. Microlearning is all about using bite-sized learning that can be delivered through a variety of different media that can be accessed on-the-go and at the point of need.
In 2022, Microlearning will continue to be a significant part of training programs, given its effectiveness to improve learning outcomes. Sample these numbers to understand why: Microlearning enhances learner engagement by 50% while improving focus and long-term retention by up to 80%. Learning architect Ray Jimenez says in his book 3-minute eLearning that micro-courses can help learning developers reduce development costs by 50% and increase the speed of development by 300%.
If you have decided to make Microlearning a seminal part of your training and development approach this year, here are a few things you need to remember:
# Microlearning is not about reducing the size of existing courses.
While Microlearning is small, crisp learning nuggets delivered to learners, this does not mean you tamper with your current courses. If you try to scale-down and convert your larger eLearning courses, you could end up with something that’s nothing like a Microlearning course. The best way is to choose from the many one minute and 10 minute Microlearning solutions offered by content providers in the market that are perfect alternatives to long-form training.
# Consider employee motivation while choosing courses.
While choosing the right Microlearning courses, it is very important to take into consideration learner motivation. Learners most often look at some form of intrinsic motivation while taking up a learning module. So it’s imperative to have courses that recognize and target this motivation. Often, L&D is too busy looking at extrinsic motivation rather than looking at engagement and passion employees already have for learning. You need to analyze and understand what your employees value so that you can offer them a more effective Microlearning experience that will yield desired results.
# Focus on content variety to improve learner engagement.
When employees take up a Microlearning course, they will most likely dedicate about 10 minutes to the whole learning experience. It is this window that you as an L&D professional has to make the most of to engage and educate them. The agility and accessibility of the Microlearning courses has to be leveraged which means it’s necessary to pick the right courses. It helps to choose courses that ensure learners derive optimum benefits from the time they are spending on their training. One way is to use varied and multiple content types which engage learners and keep them engaged through the short course. Using short videos is a great way to stimulate engagement and get learners on the right track faster.
# Mobilize Microlearning solutions to reinforce training.
While Microlearning is used to meet different learning outcomes, one of the most notable ones is to reinforce learning. It can be effectively used to reinforce key learning concepts and to create a repository of such learning modules. Learners can access these short reference materials focused on a singular topic through this library. The integration of Microlearning and knowledge reinforcement is effective because it challenges and excites learners rather than burdening them with more content.
# Use Microlearning to create a robust upskilling and reskilling program.
Upskilling and reskilling employees is an integral part of every organization’s growth. Microlearning is an effective way to both upskill and reskill, especially in the current situation where organizations are putting their best foot forward to recover from the pandemic. Traditional, lengthy eLearning methods may prove to be a challenge for upskilling and reskilling because they are often viewed as burdensome by learners. Microlearning helps in this case with the effective use of small bites of content to train, providing focused information that is aimed at delivering a specific learning objective.
Today, there are myriad eLearning courses and material available online. While some are perfect for individual learning, some providers like Plethora come as customized and curated solutions that take a consultative approach towards solving a business challenge through employee skilling. Plethora’s Microlearning solution offers the perfect alternative to long-form training by empowering learners with access to hundreds of one minute and ten minute videos that are easy to digest. You can give your workforce the added advantage of bite-sized content and reinforcement learning with hundreds of 1 minute & 10 minute videos for learning in the flow of work.
Get to learn more about our Microlearning offering.