Launching a microlearning solution becomes easy once you are clear about the design – whether to use infographics, podcasts, animations, videos, and so on, and how to blend all these together. Well, it all depends on the context and how you deal with it.
At a Glance
- Microlearning design starts with knowing Learning goals (Key Learning Points), learners’ needs, and learning gaps.
- Different learning assets are needed for different puposes. Choosing one out of many depends on the context.
- Reinforcing learning metters. This means practice, assesments, and learning moments reiterated when required.
- Scenarios, simulations and role-plays = Opportunities to practice workplace decisions.
- The right content, timely practice and continuous assessments make microlearning more relevant, engaging and actionable.
Let’s explore a success story to see how they got it right the first time…
ABC & Co. Success Story
The Challenge
ABC & Co. is a software company and is improving stakeholder management skills of three different teams.
The company’s main challenges are to equip their staff with smart communication and stakeholder management skills, helping them handle difficult clients, and enabling them to become consistently effective.
The experts weren’t fully equipped for team-specific scenarios, hence long classroom sessions were ruled out.
The Solution
After due consideration, self-paced microlearning was chosen.
Participants could use the microlearning platform on their mobile phones or laptops. They could easily fit in these short microlearning practice-based sessions within their normal workdays without getting overwhelmed.
Microlearning maps were created to cover multiple unique scenarios, with the content and design elements developed around those microlearning maps. The microlearning initiative was implemented for over 150 users in six batches, and a marked improvement in their communication and stakeholder management skills was seen.
Step 1. Learning context established
With the help of a team of expert coaches, the microlearning content for stakeholder management was curated. The AI-powered authoring tool was used by trainers to create microlearning lessons. Multiple videos were created by the trainers where necessary. These were to be embedded into the microlearning lesson.
The LMS worked like an on-demand coach, providing customized support in different stakeholder management scenarios. The three different teams had different risk- and role-specific learning needs. The trainers made sure to match those, by creating microlearning maps for each learner group. Gamification elements and videos were included to keep the learners engaged.
Step 2. Practice sessions initiated
During the learning and practice phase, each learner was assessed on their strengths and weaknesses, and offered games, quizzes, and repetitions to improve their performance.
Step 3. Decision-making honed
Decision-making was practised using stakeholder management scenarios. The learning content gave different situations involving negotiating, making decisions, and setting expectations with stakeholders like clients.
Step 4. Assessments done
Learners were scored based on their responses and choices. Responses were measured, providing learners with a baseline to measure their communication and stakeholder management skills.
Step 5. Reinforcement & Analytics
The adaptive LMS counted and rated their choice of responses, solutions, and communication, and provided reinforcements and content exposure as applicable to each learner. This was done using the adaptive feature of the platform. The platform did this by providing timely reminders and practice activities as per learning gaps and proficiency levels of each learner.
Analytics made it easier to gain insights into each one’s learning path. The easy-to-read dashboard allowed the talent development team to monitor app usage along with individual performances.
The outcome: the company was able to deliver highly engaging microlearning lessons for future training programs as well.
What They Got Right in Their Microlearning Design
What they did right:
- Microlearning platform with gamification, instructional videos, and use case scenarios
- Quizzes to help learners retrieve content from memory
- Constant reminders and practice sessions to beat the ‘forgetting curve’
- Adaptive learning to cater to each participant’s needs
- Podcasts for learner to listen to while working
- Infographics, job-aids, and pictures as required
- Icons and short-actionable statements to build recall and facilitate decisions
- Videos (live and whiteboard animations) to facilitate learning
- Game elements (points, badges, leaderboards) to build healthy competition
- Short simulations, lightweight scenarios, and role-plays for practice
Choosing the Right Microlearning LMS Makes Success Easier
A good, robust microlearning platform makes life easier for trainers, learners and management.
Such a platform enables you in achieving 4 training purposes viz.
- enabling you in Supplementing your current training efforts,
- helping you in Reinforcing critical work-related learning content,
- supporting you in Augmenting current learning materials, and to boost employee confidence in performing work-related tasks, and
- making Remediation of poor performance and behaviors effortless!
Microlearning LMS Capabilities that Enable
| Microlearning LMS capability | Benefit |
|---|---|
| AI-powered authoring tool | Reduces the time to develop quality content. Generates microlearning content in the form of flash cards and questions of different difficulty levels. Uses Key Learning Points as the building blocks. |
| Personalization of learning | Risk-specific assessment of the knowledge of each topic for each individual learner is done. Content is tailor-made as per job and risk profile of a learner. |
| Adaptive Learning Algorithm | Adjusts the difficulty level of questions based on a learner’s performance. Learners receive content that matches their current level of understanding. |
| Spaced Repetition of Key Concepts | Content is reviewed and reinforced at periodical intervals. This secures long-term memory of each learner. |
| Comprehensive Data Analytics | Real-time verification of all the key parameters of learning is done at an individual topic. Key parameters are measured: learning growth, learning gap, and achievement of the organization’s learning goals. |
It is important to understand that the right microlearning LMS cannot be a substitute to a good microlearning design. It simply makes your learning design (microlearning map) easier to implement and manage. This makes the entire microlearning initiative sustainable.
To conclude, getting microlearning right means getting the learning goals, the learners, the context, the design elements, and the technology right. Getting these elements right brings it all together for a successful microlearning initiative.
