I am going to tell you a story. When I was an undergraduate, I took a course on Classical Arabic Literature. I took the course not because of any interest in the material, but because I was a big fan of the professor. To this day, I remember very little about the course. However, I do remember this. One day, we were covering a particularly difficult poem. After some discussion, the professor asked everyone to pause. He told us to look at the first line of one of our poems. He said, "Ignore everything else. Let's pretend that other information isn't there." We dove in for the next 10 minutes, and we never strayed from those lines.

Little did I know it at the time, but this was one of my earliest experiences with microlearning.

Microlearning is targeted learning. Instead of focusing on many different objectives, microlearning focuses on 1-2 of them. It is a hyper-focused method of learning a desired behavior or concept. It asks students to engage in a short spurt of effort, rather than asking them to stay tuned in for a long period. By doing this, microlearning privileges (1) a laser-focus on 1-2 objectives and (2) active learning.

Microlearning courses are often called nuggets.

Microlearning nuggets can be used to boost recall, quickly assess the learner's grasp of the material, and renew the learner's interest once it starts to flag. After all, as research shows, learners often take away more from small 10-minute microlearning nuggets (especially if they are space out over a week or so) than from a single 70-minute lesson. By breaking up a concept into easily digestible nuggets and then spacing out instruction, we can avoid the dreaded "forgetting curve."

We live in an age of distraction. This is true for faculty members as well as students. In fact, right now, I am writing these sentences with 14 internet windows open, a Zoom meeting running in the background, and 2 separate browsers. I have also received 3 separate email notifications, 3 chat notifications, and 2 text messages. We are all constantly surrounded by activity!

In an age of distraction, focus is the new IQ. Encouraging students to home in on 1-2 objectives momentarily relieves them from the cognitive load that we all deal with constantly. This kind of learning has benefits not only for learning a particular concept, but over time can improve the learner's ability to focus regularly.

Microlearning is based on the premise that "monotasking," or focusing on 1 thing with our full attention, is central to productivity and personal growth.