5 Key Benefits Of Microlearning

I believe that microlearning has several benefits for organizations that are looking for quick wins such as increased learner participation, memorability of courses, and quick deployment/easy updates to the courses. In this article, I will share 5 key benefits based on my experience.

5 Key Benefits Of Microlearning With Case Studies

In my previous article on microlearning, I touched upon the definition and key aspects of microlearning. Here, my focus is on its benefits.

1. Better Engagement For Learners

To start with, microlearning engages the learners better as it is targeted for a specific learning objective and is of shorter duration. Microlearning content is not more than 5 to 10 minutes, and thus learners don’t feel the fatigue factor of going through longer courses. They go through the short microlearning course quickly and understand the concept and move on. Even if 5 microlearning modules are presented to the learners, they don’t feel rushed or bored, and they complete the course faster. It is always better to have shorter specific modules that address a specific need to meet an objective rather than having 30 minutes module with 3 to 4 objectives.

2. Better Retention Of Concepts

Short microlearning courses are designed to address one learning objective and can be presented in a couple of screens as video and animation or 2 animation pages. Because of this, learners are able to understand what action needs to be performed or the learning outcome that needs to be accomplished. The result is better retention of concepts. Short games, quizzes, and videos can be easily converted to microlearning courses as well and can be implemented for effective learning process.

3. Better Transfer To The Job Of The Concepts Learned

As the concepts are learnt and retained, learners can apply the concepts better in their job. The objective of any training is to help learners improve their performance. This can happen when they are able to remember the concepts better. A microlearning course helps learners to understand the concept better as the concept is directly mapped to an action that the learner must perform in the job. The memory drop after training is also reduced as learners can take the microlearning course at any place and any time to refresh their understanding of the concept.

4. Benefit For The Organizations-Faster Development And Easy Deployment

Organizations that are looking for quick wins and want to train their employees on new features of their products or services or want to train their salesforce about an interesting technique that can be applied for negotiation can take the benefit of microlearning courses. Microlearning courses are faster to develop and deploy, and thus they fulfill the needs of the organization to train their staff very quickly without investing a lot of time on cumbersome and long training modules. Organizations can easily update any changes that they wish to make the courses after a few months of deployment. To make it happen, organizations need to engage the right kind of talent to develop these short modules.

5. Helps Organizations Implement Mobile Courses Using Unique Interactivities

Microlearning can be implemented on any device, be it a PC, a tablet, or a smartphone. However, as the courses are short, they are an ideal fit for a smartphone delivery. Organizations that are looking to implement mobile courses can start off by implementing short microlearning courses with a variety of interactivities and activities. When it comes to mobile delivery, a variety of mini-games or activity templates that are unique to smartphone can be tried out and implemented. Learners will enjoy them too. An example could be using a variation of true/false template or a matching template that is unique only for a smartphone delivery.

Apart from the benefits enumerated above, microlearning has a unique advantage of being just-in-time learning. Any organization looking for quick wins for their training programs can try microlearning as a key delivery mechanism.

Case Studies

1. Nutrition And Health

The customer wanted a short course on training their staff on basics of healthcare and nutrition. We developed this course which had interesting interactivities and questions along with a summary at the end.

2. Banking Products

The customer wanted to train their sales staff on the basic concepts of bank accounts that they have for their customers. We created the course with a variety of short interactive templates that are a unique design for a smartphone delivery.

3. Kaizen

Kaizen is an important concept in process improvement and is applied to various sectors such as manufacturing and product development. The customer wanted to train their employees on Kaizen and we built a series of microlearning modules on this concept.