Learning Simplified: How to Develop Microlearning
Discover practical steps for developing microlearning modules to simplify and streamline learning.
Looking to get people up to speed quickly with information that is straight to the point? Microlearning is a method that delivers brief, topic-specific content in under 10 minutes for just-in-time readiness.
But how do you develop a learning strategy that includes microlearning? How do you design individual modules? In this article, we’ll walk through the process together.
Example scenario
Let’s say that your organization uses Microsoft Teams, a workspace chat, videoconferencing, and file storage application. A training need was identified because people are missing crucial messages, having trouble finding documents, struggling with settings during meetings, and, overall, not managing Teams as efficiently as possible to free up time for more important tasks.
A traditional, common solution might be to offer a one- or two-hour training session to cover all Microsoft Teams features, walking through how to facilitate meetings in Teams, manage individual channels and chats, et cetera. Surely everyone will know how to do everything after the training.
Problem solved, right?
The actual result is that learners are overwhelmed with the amount of content being presented. The cognitive load is too high, which keeps people from absorbing and retaining much of the information. Learners also quickly notice that some of the content doesn’t apply to them and their daily work. For example, if they already know how to share their screen during a meeting, they begin to disengage from the training and lose interest.
What’s a better approach?
Perform a needs analysis
Identify the specific pain points related to using Teams. Administer a survey or conduct interviews or focus groups. What’s hard for users when it comes to Teams? What are their frustrations? What are they spending a lot of time doing? What level of user needs the most assistance? By asking these questions, you’ll be able to identify a pattern of pain points that you can address through training.
Identify solutions to their pain points
Let’s say that people express frustration that others don’t reply to their messages in Teams. A solution might be that they can tag, or “mention” someone so the other person is more likely to notice it when they receive a notification. Or if it takes them too long to find a chat with a particular person, they can pin that conversation to the top of their chats.
Create learning objectives
Drill down to those specific actions that are solutions to the pain points. Those actions then become your learning objectives. An objective could be: By the end of the training module, learners will be able to “mention” a team member in a chat.
Organize learning objectives to create an outline for the course. For example, there may be categories of Teams meetings, channels, documents, and notifications. Under a category of notifications, there may be five learning objectives:
- Mention a team member in a chat
- Customize settings to receive notifications only for mentions or replies
- Set up Priority Access to allow notifications from specific people
- Mute a chat or channel
- Change your status to Do Not Disturb
Design microlearning modules
Each of these learning objectives will become a microlearning module. For example, there will be a module on how to “mention” a team member in a chat. That’s the only content that will be covered in that module. When designing each module, consider:
Format
What is the most effective way for your audience to learn the skill? A video demo? A quick reference guide with images and steps? An interactive activity? Consider what will allow people to most quickly acquire the skill and be able to retrieve the information at the exact moment they need it.
For the task of mentioning someone in a chat, a 30-second video demonstration might be the best format. The task is so simple that once someone sees it done, they will likely be able to do it moving forward without support. However, it could be paired with a quick article in the knowledge base for reference.
Prerequisite skills
The module should teach just that skill, so if a prerequisite skill is needed you could include a link to the microlearning that teaches the previous skill(s) (e.g., how to start a chat).
Connect to the need
Connect the skill back to the pain point being addressed. The learning should explain how this skill alleviates the issue. Modules could even be named, organized, or marketed based on the pain points. “Frustrated with missing Teams messages or other people missing your messages? Check out the microlearnings below.”
Designing a training strategy like this allows learners to get just the content they need, just when they need it. They won’t have to sit through training on skills they don’t need or wouldn’t use. Their attention will be held by trainings that are quick and straight to the point. An additional benefit is that if something changes, no one needs to rerecord the entire training — just update the individual module.
Consider developing microlearning modules in your organization to make learning more focused and streamlined. If you’re looking to explore more on this topic, check out these articles on the neuroscience behind microlearning and examples of what it could look like in your organization.
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