A Guide to Creating Microlearning

What is microlearning? How beneficial is it? What steps should you follow to create microlearning-based training? How long should microlearning modules be? In this article, we will find answers to the questions above.

What is Microlearning?

Let's consider a scenario: You have a problem, and you are looking for an urgent solution. You started looking at one of the resources you have, and it seemed very complicated to you. You couldn't find a solution to your problem. In this case, the most logical thing you can do is to leave that resource and turn to the resource that will provide you with the quickest solution, right?

This is exactly where microlearning comes into play to help us. First, let's briefly talk about what microlearning is.

Microlearning is an approach that aims to provide training by presenting content divided into short modules, each with its own learning objective. The fact that it is a goal-oriented approach, provides direct information on the subject, and does not require additional resources makes microlearning perfect for a training scenario similar to the one above.

Microlearning adopts an educational program design that aims to quickly answer users' potential questions. Thanks to microlearning, instructional designers focus on conveying information in an easy-to-understand manner. Thus, information that is easily understood by the user closes the information gap.

In other words, microlearning helps the user quickly access information to close the information gap.

How Effective is Microlearning?

So, what makes microlearning so effective as a training approach? To better understand, let's consider two different scenarios: professionals and Gen Z youth. 

Let's start with professionals first. The average person allocates only 1% of their available time to training related to their area of expertise. When talking about such a short time, it is meaningless to expect an employee to spend too much time on comprehensive training programs.

On the other hand, it is necessary not to forget the new generation individuals, especially Generation Z. It is utopian to expect Generation Z, which has an average attention threshold of 8 seconds, to passively sit and participate in a long training program.

Therefore, in both cases, only the microlearning approach can offer training that covers everyone.

How to Design Microlearning-Based Training?

To create microlearning-based training modules, you need to carefully complete many steps. Now, let's take a closer look at what these steps are:

Step 1 – Define Your Target Audience

The first thing you need to do is clearly define your target audience. If you are trying to create training that will appeal to multiple, poorly defined audiences, the training will most likely fail.

Since microlearning is a form of training that aims to quickly close information gaps, you need to remove all types of content that are not absolutely necessary. For this, you need to know your target audience well.

So what should you do?

When analyzing the content, remove all information that is not necessary to close the information gap. In the microlearning approach, you should remove "useful" information and keep only the “most necessary” ones in the training.

Step 2 – Divide the Training Program into Short Learning Modules

After defining your target audience, you need to divide the comprehensive training into shorter, smaller modules. Long trainings lead to excessive cognitive load. Microlearning advocates the exact opposite of this practice. Each module should provide different goal-oriented information. Thus, in each module, the user asks himself/herself the question "What's in this training for me?" and is eager to complete the training.

So what should you do?

By dividing the training program into modules, you should close specific information/skill gaps of users in each module.

Step 3 – Ensure that the Modules are Independent of Each Other

Each module should be understandable without requiring repetition of previous modules to achieve a specific learning goal or close an information gap. Each module should contain different information, independent of other modules.

So what should you do?

You should create activities based on only one module. You should not create activities that require users to complete other modules first.

Step 4 – Determine the Structure of the Training Program

You should choose a simple, logical structure for your content. Each module should be separate from each other.  However, when the modules are combined in sequence, they should create an overall training program that adds depth to the learning experience.

Example

Let's take Duolingo as an example. Duolingo offers independent training modules, each lasting less than a few minutes. When combined, these modules last hundreds of hours and create a complete learning experience.

So what should you do?

The training program should be so