Benefits and Challenges of Microlearning

Unit 3: Benefits and Challenges of Microlearning

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

• Name and describe how microlearning can benefit employees & organizations
• Name some common microlearning challenges

Microlearning Benefits

Microlearning has numerous benefits for both organizations and employees. When done correctly, it can help close skill gaps, boost learner engagement, reduce training costs, and lower employee turnover. According to PR Newswire (2019), it "empowers enterprises to offer result-oriented training to their frontline employees and enables learners to understand and implement the learning in their jobs easily."¹

The infographic below shows many of the benefits of microlearning:

Source:² https://change.walkme.com/microlearning-examples/

Benefits of Microlearning Infographic:

• Easy to update
• Convenient and readily available
• Personalized learning
• Enhanced knowledge retention
• Time-saving
• Diverse usage
• Learner-centered
• Boosted worker involvement
• Cost effective and adaptable
• Expedited development process

Here is a shorter list of some of microlearning's biggest benefits for both organizations and learners:

Source:³ https://www.slideshare.net/NIITUSA/niit-microlearning-v2-51794806

Microlearning Challenges

While it's clear that microlearning has many benefits, it can present some challenges⁴ as well.

Some of the most commonly cited challenges of microlearning are:

• Does not deliver big ideas
• Not suitable for complex concepts
• Long term goals not considered
• May be confusing
• Can become fragmented

Another potential challenge is that while employees can complete microlearning lessons in just a few minutes, the planning and management of those lessons for training leaders and instructional designers can be very time-consuming. It can be a lengthy process to restructure existing training materials and learning activities to accommodate the incorporation of microlearning elements.

Reflection Question:

What do you think would be the biggest benefit(s) of implementing microlearning (or more microlearning) at your current place of employment?

What, if any, do you think would be the biggest challenge(s)?

Click here to comment your response in the class digital journal.

Check Your Knowledge

Instructions:

1. Click here to access the Knowledge Check.
2. Return to the course after you complete it.
3. Continue to Unit 4: Microlearning Design and Delivery

Page References

¹ PR Newswire. (2019, August 7). Global microlearning forecast to 2024 – gamification of training and education to boost the adoption of microlearning.

² WalkMe Team. (2023, June 29). 4 microlearning examples from Fortune 500 companies. WalkMe.

³ NIIT USA, Inc.(2015, August 19). Micro-Learning: Why big isn’t always better. [PowerPoint]. Slideshare.

⁴ Joshi, N. (2020, August 28). Micro learning: An introduction. Evelyn Learning.