Microlearning in the Workplace

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Introduction

Welcome to Microlearning in the Workplace! This mini-course aims to educate learning and development professionals about what microlearning is, and how it can be used to help train employees. It can also benefit anyone interested in understanding more about microlearning in general. Please take a moment to review the information below, after which you can begin the course by using the links at the bottom of the page. Let's get started!

Course Overview

"Most employees view training as medicine, or worse, as punishment. They might not expect death, but clearly some horrible form of torture."¹

Despite the importance of effective employee training, many companies still get it wrong. Rather than providing informative and engaging learning experiences, they often require employees to struggle through training that they view as long, boring, and largely irrelevant to their job. According to Grovo (2014), microlearning, on the other hand, has been found to address the needs of learners in the most efficient and effective manner possible.² It is my hope that after completing this course, you will view microlearning as an appealing and effective employee training method for your organization.

Here are some specifics about how this course works:

Major topics include what microlearning is, how it can benefit employees and organizations, and best practices for its design aopportunity to nd delivery.
The first four units conclude with a review activity to check your knowledge before moving to the next unit.
In addition, each unit will also include individual reflection questions or group discussion topics.
Unit five contains a course concluding activity to provide you the opportunity to practice what you have learned.
Unit six will wrap up the course, and includes a takeaway reference document of key points, as well as links to a certificate of completion and a feedback survey.

Needs Assessment

The need I saw for this course stems from the fact that in today's workplace, employees often don't have the time or motivation to increase and/or improve their skills. Microlearning is one science-backed way to address this issue. As one author noted, “Literature shows people learn better and more effectively when learning in small steps with the content broken down into digestible small pieces.” ²

The intent for this course is to enable learning and development professionals to positively impact employee engagement and performance by being able to design and deliver department specific microlearning. The course will accomplish this by developing the following knowledge, skills, and attitudes in participants:

Knowledge:
- Microlearning definition
- Microlearning benefits for employees and organizations
- Microlearning content types
Skills:
- Microlearning design best practices
- Microlearning delivery best practices
Attitudes:
- Positive view of microlearning as an effective training method
- Motivation to implement it with employees

Performance Objectives

Here is what you can expect to learn from this course:

After completing Unit 1 of this mini-course, you will be able to:

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

After completing Unit 2 of this mini-course, you will be able to:

List and describe different microlearning content types

After completing Unit 3 of this mini-course, you will be able to:

Recognize the benefits and challenges of microlearning for employees and organizations

After completing Unit 4 of this mini-course, you will able able to:

Identify microlearning design and delivery best practices

After completing Unit 5 of this mini-course, you will be able to:

Apply what you have learned to design your own microlearning content

After completing Unit 6 of this mini-course, you will be able to:

View and/or print a reference document listing key course ideas
Print out a course completion certificate
Provide feedback about your experience taking this course
Access a list of additional resources for further learning

Course Units

This mini-course includes the following units. Click on the title of any unit to go to its page:

Unit 1: What is Microlearning?

Unit 2: Microlearning Content Types

Unit 3: Benefits and Challenges of Microlearning

Unit 4: Microlearning Design and Delivery

Unit 5: Practice Activities

Unit 6: Course Conclusion

Page References

¹ Ryan, D. (n.d.). Why people hate training. The Training and Development World. http://thetrainingworld.com/articles/hatetraining.htm

² Grovo, 2014. Bite Size Is the Right Size How Microlearning Shrinks the Skills Gap in Higher Education [White paper]. http://www.ecampusnews.com/files/2014/12/Grovo_Higher_ed.pdf

³ Lee, Y. (2023). Mobile microlearning: a systematic literature review and its implications. Interactive Learning Environments, 31(7), 4636-4561. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10494820.2021.1977964