Microlearning.
A microlearning about microlearning.
A microlearning about microlearning.
This informative micro-resource encourages those who are curious about making learning and training more digestible, memorable and fun!
Responsibilities: Research, Storyboarding, eLearning Design & Development
Target Audience: Human Resources and L&D team members, Trainers, Line Managers responsible for training
Tools Used: 7Taps
Year: 2023
In this multinational digital company, the existing training materials were often long, content-heavy 'training decks': from onboarding and compliance, to product knowledge training and job aids. This over-reliance on lengthy slide presentations with no active learning or consideration for learning design, led to scarce learning transfer and complaints of ‘deck fatigue’.
The L&D team were tasked with finding more effective training formats and solutions to break down this cognitive overload and ensure training was more impactful.
As a senior member of the L&D team, I chose to the concept of ‘microlearning’. With experience of successfully implementing a range of microlearning approaches before, I knew its benefits. Here are just some:
Its multimodality, e.g. audiovisual multimedia content, interactive quizzes, on-the-job aids, etc.
The flexibility it gives learners (mobile aspect = anywhere, anytime).
The fact it's more time-effective than endless deep dives.
Short yet meaningful & impactful digital learning.
I proposed designing an informative resource that would encourage a better understanding of microlearning and to promote its wider use across the business.
I thoroughly researched the reasons why microlearning works and its wide-ranging benefits. Taking inspiration from examples of effective microlearning I’d investigated or created myself, I wrote a content map (storyboard) and decided how to chunk the information into bitesize content. I decided to use the tool 7Taps as it lends itself to the quick development of easy-to-digest content, and so is an example of microlearning itself!
I developed the deck of cards with snack-sized content in multimedia formats, including text, GIFs, visuals, audio and video. At the end, the learner is asked a few brief questions to check understanding, followed by an opportunity to reflect on their own experience of microlearning. I got feedback on the format, flow and general design and took corrective action accordingly.
Initial feedback was that this resource was not only informative and memorable, but it also inspired people to change their training resources across the wider business to adopt a more multimodality, bitesize approach and design.
This mini project is a great example of how effective eLearning can be rapidly designed and developed, and most importantly, how a small intervention can have a big impact.