Overview

In my previous article on microlearning, Creating an Effective Learning Experience Through Microlearning Strategy I had noted, “Microlearning has emerged as an important way to improve learners’ recall and understanding of crucial concepts and use them as learning aids during the moment-of-need”. Microlearning strategy is extremely effective to teach one objective with videos, animation and activities.

With this as backdrop, let me state an idea that I found working well recently, which is using a gamification strategy in a microlearning format.

Why Gamification with Microlearning?

Well, to start with games are increasingly becoming popular when it comes to learning new concepts or skills. Gamifications strategy works well as games have the immersive quality that compels a learner to pay better attention. So, when we combine microlearning which anyways is a short nugget with gamification elements, we create great interest in the learners to learn the concepts and perform the activity and remember the concept as well.

In a gamification strategy, the idea is not to bore the learners with lot of concepts or theories. The aim is to make the learner perform an activity and score points. When we add a leaderboard element, the game becomes even more competitive.

Many fun arcade games such as maze games or Mario type of games are of short duration. So, if we can weave a game in a microlearning format, meaning having short activities that can be completed fast and also enable scoring options, then we have a ready winner.

Thus, we need to focus on the goals that we would accomplish with the microlearning and gamification strategy. Some of the goals include but not limited to the following:

1. Improve retention of concept learnt
2. Act as just-in-time learning aids in the field or at workplace
3. Act as a positive reinforcement
4. Provide extra information over and above the main learning content
5. Provide tips to do a job or task in a better manner

Having seen the guidelines, lets next look at couple of case studies.

Case study 1: Microlearning nuggets, learning journey and gamification

The customer needed a series of microlearning courses about food safety and hygiene for their staff. After analyzing the requirements, we suggested to have microlearning with gamification strategy to be implemented for the course. For this, we created a learning journey along with avatar selection and points for activities within each microlearning nugget. This made the learning impactful, meaningful, engaging and memorable.

Case study 2: Food and Nutrition microlearning course

The requirement was to create a course on the various types of food sources, the nutrition value and the associated concepts. We created a series of microlearning courses on each element. For example, a course on carbohydrates, one on fats, a course on proteins and so on. Then we combined microlearning and gamification strategy to improve the engagement level. Each course had activities that has gamification elements which enhanced the overall experience for the learners.

Benefits of the Microlearning and Gamification Strategy

By combining the power of microlearning and gamification strategy, the customers could reap several benefits such as:

1. Increased engagement levels for the learners
2. Better completion rates
3. Better application of concepts learnt to job/tasks at hand
4. Better ROI for the organization
5. Met the business and training goals

Conclusion

To conclude, the right mix of microlearning and gamification elements helps in creating the right engagement for the learners and helps organization reap several benefits.

We have implemented microlearning strategies using unique activity-based nuggets, game-based nuggets and importantly being device agnostic. Learners get the same experience, whether on a PC, a tablet, or a smartphone.

Our ID strategists and creative designers will work with you to plan, strategize, develop, and deploy learning solutions using the right gamification strategy and game-based eLearning strategies.