In learning, small is beautiful

One of the buzziest concepts in L&D so far this year is micro learning. Also called bite-sized or learning snacks, it’s an approach that seems a good fit when we consider what people do at work today. Some facts about what it’s actually like to work in 2016[1]:

Only 1% of the work week is devoted to formal training and development
62% of IT professionals have paid for training from their own pockets
Workers are interrupted on average every 5 minutes
30% of full time employees work in a different location to their employer
People unlock their smart phones up to 9 times an hour
Workers use search engines to find up to 70% of the information they need
Current professional skills may only have a shelf life of 5 years

So, taking employees away from work and sitting them in front of a computer screen or trainer for hours on end just isn’t the only way to train them. Nowadays it seems that work happens in moments. So maybe we need to consider learning in moments too.

"Learning happens in moments"

Micro learning has the ability to provide more effective learning and better engagement because it works with the system, not against it. I mean the learner’s system. Rather than taking an employee away from multi-tasking, distractions and searching for information, micro learning sits at the centre of all this noise; quite literally in the palm of your hand.

Short videos, podcasts, quizzes and games – all available on any device, with topics created specifically for your job, even incorporating an internal search engine. Even better than Google! And it needs to be; in the information age where informal learning is king, we L&D professionals need to understand that our competition is Google.

Our other competition is time; the average human attention capacity is now said to be 3-7 minutes, and 4 minutes is the point most people stop watching a video online. So a micro learning lesson can't be more than 5 minutes. 

"Learning in the palm of your hand"

So how and where can we best implement this new learning? Think about new employee on-boarding. Very often this consists of  weeks of sitting in presentations, meeting heads of department and shadowing experienced colleagues. But today's recruits are expected to hit the ground running and be productive from day 1, especially if there are attrition pressures. What if we could give the new joiner the tools to get started on work right away? Real on-the-job training, actually on the job.

Imagine an on-boarding curriculum where the employee can access a series of 5 minute lessons from any device they are carrying, which cover all the essential topics required. No one can really say they don't have 5 minutes. Employees are not required to take the lessons in a linear way like a course; they are encouraged to use them when the need arises. Learn about how we work with customers by watching a short video and doing a quiz, then try it out straight away on a new customer! 

The experience of learning in the moment of need opens up natural pathways for getting instant and real feedback (was the customer happy?), working with peers  (how did I do?) and re-visiting the learning armed with some real world experience (now I get what that means!). 

"Micro learning is all about user experience"

For the learning designer, this kind of approach means moving away from designing the presentation of knowledge and towards designing user experience.   It means loosening our grip on trying to control learners and tightening the way we observe and learn about them. But micro learning provides a time dividend to help learning professionals focus on these new activities, as a 5 minute lesson takes a lot less instructional design than a 2 day workshop. 

I have a lot more to explore and learn about micro learning, but it has caught my interest already for some very good reasons. It seems to be a feature of our age to seek less effort for more reward. Could micro learning provide this, for both learners and learning designers? 

[1] https://twitter.com/josh_bersin/status/542080404115947521