Microlearning Unit 1

Unit 1: What is Microlearning?

Learning Objectives:

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

Explain what microlearning is and is not
Understand how the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve supports microlearning

Introduction

Time. In today's fast-paced world, time is something that most of us wish we had more of. When it comes to our jobs, even though we know that continued learning is critical to our career success, we often think, "I just don't have the time." But what if learning at work looked more like the ways we prefer to consume information in our personal lives every day? Would it be something we would be more likely to fit into our schedule? This course will explore microlearning as an effective training method which benefits both individual employees and organizations as a whole. But before we take a deeper dive into those topics, let's first learn a bit more about what the word microlearning means.

Microlearning Defined

Kapp and Defelice (2019) summarize microlearning as "an instructional unit that provides a short engagement in an activity intentionally designed to elicit a specific outcome from the participant."¹ E-Learning author and educator Badrul Khan's framework for microlearning elaborates further, stating that it needs to be interactive and engaging, with a usable interface design, delivered in short durations, as just-in-time support via device-independent technologies.²

Click the play button on the video below to understand more about what microlearning is, and what it is not:

Video Recap

Here are some important takeaways from this video:

Microlearning is a flexible learning strategy focused on achieving specific, actionable, and performance-oriented results.
Microlearning is:
- Small and focused
- For the acquisition of new knowledge, skills, abilities
- Aimed at generating desired results
- Able to be designed in a variety of different formats
Microlearning is NOT:
- A new concept or fad
- Simply chopping longer content into smaller pieces
- (A substitute for) employee performance support
- A single, one dose solution

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

Click the play button on the video below to learn some of the science behind microlearning:

Video Recap

Here are some important takeaways from this video:

The Forgetting Curve, devised by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885, shows how quickly we forget new information over time.
During his research, when Ebbinghaus tested his own memory, he forgot 90% of everything he learned within one month.
Our brains operate a strict "use it or lose it" policy when it comes to storing information.
Therefore, in order for training to drive behavior change, it needs to "stick" inside a learner's brain.
To make information "sticky," it needs to be regularly repeated/reinforced.

Unfortunately, most learning and development models don't consider the Forgetting Curve. Neither do many traditional employee training methods. Microlearning, on the other hand, which is short, focused, and performance oriented, mitigates the Forgetting Curve by giving employees information that can be easily digested and recalled. In Unit 2, we will explore content types that are ideally suited for microlearning.