Bite-Sized Content: How Microlearning is Changing Education

Microlearning, or delivering bite-sized forms of information, supports a multitude of applications across a variety of industries. Microlearning focuses on one to two learning objectives. According to Kapp and Defelice (2019), a short lesson, typically under 10 minutes long, that can take the form of a video, brief e-learning courses, or infographic. This pedagogy is fast to deliver, affordable to produce, and learners typically find it more engaging due to its flexible instructional delivery that is low-stakes and casual in nature. Additionally, microlearning trainings are highly effective at helping learners retain information. It avoids cognitive overload (learner becoming overwhelmed) by skimming the fat of a lesson. Multimedia, videos, games, and micro-assessments (like polls, surveys, or mini quizzes) keep the learner engaged and coming back to review the content. 

For my microlearning training, I’ve chosen to help aspiring digital marketers recognize ways that they can grow an audience online. This topic is contentious and packed with information. I’ve chosen to focus specifically on having users select a social media platform that best serves their target audience. With that choice, they learners also pick one metric to follow – activity on social media is expansive, virtually anything a customer does can be monitored and studied. By focusing the purpose of this course into 2 learning objectives, the learner gets to practice valuable skills as a digital marketer without becoming barraged with information all at once.  

Kapp, K. M., & Defelice, R. (2019). What is Microlearning? In Microlearning; short and sweet (pp. 3–5). essay, ASTD Press.