Micro Learning - possibilities and advantages of short learning units

Let’s be honest: Who wants to study for several hours at a stretch these days, and in addition to their daily work? Probably very few. That’s why the trend is toward micro learning. Almost 80% of the 400 companies surveyed by eLearning-Journal rely on micro learning. But what is micro learning, what are its advantages and how can it be implemented? Find out in this article and the linked case study.

Thanks to its modular structure and easier integration into everyday life, microlearning ensures more frequent and sustainable knowledge consolidation. This means that several small "learning bites" are didactically superior to a conventional e-learning unit that is completed in one piece: This is because 60% of what has just been learned is forgotten almost immediately, and the rest is forgotten over time, however more slowly.

Breaking through the "forgetting curve" is the central challenge in corporate training and continuing education - the credo is therefore repeat, repeat and repeat again. Several small learning sprints are better suited to this than a long learning marathon. In addition, large learning units with a high information density lead to limited memory and faster forgetting compared to regular retrieval of what has been learned. The success of large learning units is therefore short-lived and disappears quickly. Learning should thus be divided into several units - then the learners show significantly better results in memory.

Nothing is better suited for this than small and, above all, entertaining learning units that can be conveniently embedded in everyday working life: What is learned in a small learning unit is repeated several times and thus deepened. In this way, large learning units can be divided into several small ones. In addition to the didactic benefit of interrupting the forgetting curve, this also has other organizational advantages: microlearning enables learners to learn at their own pace - not only within a learning unit, but also between several modules on a topic. And it enables "learning on demand," which matches the consumption habits of many types of learners. Thanks to mobile apps, learning units can also be worked on while on the move. With greater availability on mobile devices, companies also reach more learners - namely, even those employees who do not have a PC workstation or are on the road a lot. This is clearly demonstrated by the successful Micro Learning project of Gegenbauer, which won the E-Learning Award

Decisive for successful micro learning are suitable contents and formats as well as their didactically meaningful preparation. Not all learning content and formats are suitable as such for micro learning. Short video tutorials and interactive learning games are ideal for small learning units.

In addition, interaction and gamification in micro training ensure that the learner does not just receive the content, but has to become active himself. The focus is on the learner’s interaction with the (hopefully attractive and entertaining) learning content - for example, in interactive learning games or role-playing games. Of course, interactions should not be an end in themselves, but should support learning on different levels. There are various interaction options, the use of which depends on the complexity of the topic, the target group and the desired learning objective. Playful learning (so-called gamification) increases the motivation to learn even more, increases the depth of processing and thus ensures that content is conveyed even more sustainably. Examples of this are learning with and against other learners or against time, collecting points, awards, etc.

Would you like to learn more about the possibilities of Micro Learning in the context of language courses? Then please contact us. We have successfully implemented many language trainings in the form of Micro Learning.