Let’s say your kid just came home from the pet shop with a goldfish and tank. A gift from granny. The thing is, you’ve never had a goldfish as a pet before and don’t know how to care for one. Of course, you hit a search engine and YouTube to find out. You’re probably not going to spend hours researching how to care for an aquarium full of tropical fish.
What you’ve done there is make use of microlearning. Targeted, specific content right at the time you need it. And this sort of quick upskilling can also be applied across your workplace strategy. Why waste everyone’s time with broad overviews when you can be brief, focused and meet learners' needs immediately? This blog has been designed to explain 7 easy steps to craft an effective microlearning strategy before you head out to buy a tiny treasure chest and castle. Bloop.
Step-by-Step Guide:
Step 1: Identify your learners – Find out which team members will find microlearning useful and what they will need and use. What is the best way to deliver this content? Are they more likely to take in animated content, or are they a podcast person? Can they take these courses on the go, or will they be on a desktop computer? Knowing this stuff will help you tailor the content.
Step 2: Set a learning outcome – What exactly do you want this content to do? With microlearning, you must factor a singular learning objective into your strategy planning and make it specific. The learner needs to fulfil this objective and keeping it to a single objective ensures you don’t include irrelevant content.
Step 3: Develop content – Time to make that specific content. Employees can help with that. For example, you could find someone who does know the subject and ask them to record a short explainer video to help train others. Obviously, guidelines would need to be followed, and L&D leaders would need to approve so that accurate and compliant information is used. Research shows that effective microlearning content lasts between 2 and 15 minutes, so be sure to keep it brief, but include examples that learners can relate to.
Step 4: Gamify it – We love games, and microlearning should be no exception. Getting answers right gives learners a buzz, so award points and create a leaderboard to invite them to participate. It’ll help reinforce the things they’ve learned. You don’t just have to create games, either. Text, images, videos and audio all make for great microlearning content. You’ll find out what you need in step 1.
Step 5: Focus on what they need – Because microlearning is served in bite-sized pieces, it’s easy to focus on the topics that learners need and skip others. For example, they might want something specific about Subject Access Requests without spending a long time learning about the nuances about GDPR.
Step 6: Mix and match – Microlearning isn’t the only way. It’s not a replacement for traditional e-learning or in-person training, it’s a supplement to them. You could start off with formal training and use microlearning to reinforce what they have learned or add new related skills.
Step 7: Make it mobile-friendly – Microlearning should work on any device, like smartphones, laptops and tablets, to make the learning accessible to all. Remote workers or those ‘in the field’ shouldn’t miss out. We all have mobiles nowadays, so it’s a no-brainer.
So, there you have it. 7 easy steps towards crafting some top-notch microlearning. They say goldfish forget what they’ve learned after 3 seconds, but this isn’t true. But we humans aren’t much better; the average learner forgets 50% of what they have learned within a day, and 90% within a month – but this can be improved with targeted, engaging microlearning.
We’re already surrounded by short, consumable content from the social media we use, so why not make learning that’s nice and easy to digest too? The flexibility, accessibility and ease of microlearning these days bring benefits that you’d be daft to ignore.
If you're keen to know more about microlearning, why not check out our bite-sized eLearning content, covering everything from leadership and people management to health & safety and compliance! Download our free microlearning toolkit to support your business. Get in touch with us or try iAM Learning for yourself - get started today!
