Gyan Prakash

With the rise of the Internet and its accessibility among the masses, the ‘modern learner’ became prone to the ‘information overload’. Eventually, the learning focus shifted from the traditional model of transferring knowledge to a defined model of achieving specific learning objectives. In response, Micro and bite-sized learning became the new buzzwords over this decade throughout the L&D realm; but what do they really mean? To simply put, Microlearning is a holistic approach dealing with relatively small learning units and involves short-term-focused strategies especially designed for learning only the most essential parts of the skill, concept, or idea. This highly focused learning approach is made up of bite-sized (easily consumable) learning nuggets or exercises. Usually delivered through digital learning apps and websites, types of microlearning content include text, presentations, infographics, video, and audio. Teaching through interactive games, short webinars, technical talks, and podcasts are a few other good examples. Coming to the benefits of these approaches, a study at Dresden University of Technology found that short content drives over 20% more information retention than long-form content. These learning approaches take less time to consume and are more flexible as learners need to consume only those topics that are meaningful to them and can access them in an order that meets their needs; in short it supports learners accessing information “just-in-time”. From the learning providers’ point of view, these contents are much quicker to produce and easier to maintain than larger modules thereby reducing the production costs. However, Microlearning and Bite-sized learning are not devoid of risks. As these approaches consist of multiple small pieces of learning, training providers can be prone to develop trainings that may lead to learners feeling that they are missing the big picture or even create an experience of inconsistency across the types of micro contents used. This can be avoided by building clear connections between the various micro contents and identify related or suggested training towards the end of each learning unit. Organizations have started using these approaches most popularly for Compliance trainings, ‘Smart’ Onboarding in high-turnover scenarios, and even for New Product knowledge training. As digital devices become smarter, there is a clear value for Businesses and a good market for Providers to adopt these modern learning approaches.