Before we get into understanding what micro learning is, let us look at two of the most common challenges confronting the learning and development initiatives in an organization today: Attention & Retention.

Learner Attention

We know that human attention spans have been decreasing significantly over the last century. Distractions a century ago were perhaps from activities outside of the workplace such as books and plays while today's distractions come from the never ending stream of social media. Expecting a learner to be absorbing all the knowledge communicated in a class room, or for that matter an eLearning module, is just a false sense of optimism. All it takes is just one distraction to disconnect the learner from the trainer and there are no shortages of distractions today.

Knowledge Retention

No discussion on learning is complete without talking of the 'learning curve'. What is conveniently forgotten in such arguments however, is the 'forgetting curve'. We know that it is only a matter of time before anything that is learnt is forgotten, unless of course, we are fortunate to apply it immediately.

What is Microlearning?

Micro learning is defined as learning in short, digestible, bite-sized units, is next-generation training for a workforce ready to consume learning the way it does everything else: fast, small, and 'our way'. However, there are several misconceptions surrounding microlearning.

Microlearning is not simply regular learning that has been broken into smaller pieces. Microlearning is not e-learning that is accessible on a mobile device. In fact, microlearning has six characteristics that make it uniquely positioned to tackle some of today's challenges in learning and skills.

- Accessible from a variety of devices such as phones, laptops, and tablets so that learning can take place at any time and from anywhere.

- Flexible and learner-driven so that a student can skip or review course content as needed instead of moving at the pace of the slowest learner (traditional learning, on the other hand, is structured, linear, and trainer-driven).

- Modular, so that content is easy to design, produce, and update in the future. This makes micro-learning an exceptionally cost-effective education method.

- Holistic, offering a 360 degree view of a topic in order to deepen person's understanding in a meaningful and varied way.

- Recursive i.e. repeatable and formulaic, allowing for a broad view first before focusing on the less important, individual parts.

- Rich content through a combination of text, audio, video and visuals to explain complex concepts in a simple manner. Engaging with micro-learning feels much like a social media experience where information is conveyed in a wide variety of formats.

Structure of Microlearning

Microlearning allows each module to be extremely focused in its objectives allowing users to have a good sense of the purpose of each module and evaluate their own learning based on the learning objectives. Effective microlearning begins with a learning objective and ends with evaluations (e.g. Short quizzes) that relate directly to the learning objectives. Microlearning allows for the collection of many types of inputs from students including images, videos and audio. Such an approach allows for a richer form of learning including experiential learning where learners have forums to share the ways they experience learning in the 'real world'.

Mobile Micro learning for the millennial generation

Mobile Microlearning is extremely adapted to the learning needs of the millennial generation. It is well suited for short attention spans, provides the 'contextual' knowledge that is difficult to take away from traditional classroom learning or even e-learning.

Today's students use their smartphones for nearly everything from talking to friends to getting news- it is only natural that they will naturally gravitate towards their smartphones for their learning needs as well.
If your organization is not looking at microlearning, you are perhaps losing out on more than one front:

- Wasted resources to organize training programs that may not actually be 'received'.
- Leaners seeking information, when needed, will perhaps seek their own sources of information exposing an organization to the risk that the knowledge they receive is not consistent or accurate.

Technology, the Double Edged Sword

Technology, in many ways, may be one of the reasons for the attention deficit and the knowledge retention challenges. The feeling that we can always 'Google' for information may make us less conditioned to remember what we are being trained on.

The smart response needed from an organization: Embrace Technology to enhance learning by providing learners knowledge when and where needed and in small bites. Embrace Microlearning!