Microlearning: What It Is and How It Helps Educational Institutions?

The span of human attention is on the decline these days. Everyone wants to learn everything in very less time. The attention span is diminishing gradually since one can get information in just one click or a swipe. You no longer have to read thick books to become a master or get yourself trained for hours to perform a given task. 

Having said that, a short attention span is not necessarily a bad thing. With increased ways of learning, our brain’s ability to consume and process information has also amplified. Instead of reading lengthy course content or watching long videos, students can absorb the same information in bite-sized pieces. This kind of learning takes less time and is more fun. This is microlearning. Now, what exactly is microlearning?

Microlearning: An Overview 

Microlearning breaks the large chunks of information into bite-sized pieces. Breaking the content and presenting it in small amounts makes it more effective and focus-oriented. The lessons created in microlearning are short and snappy, anywhere between two to five minutes.

The saying, ‘Big change often comes in small packages,’ fits perfectly with microlearning. The course for microlearning can be created in just a couple of minutes, with a higher knowledge retention rate and improved efficiency. These courses often focus on one (or two) specific topics instead of an entire course in one. 

It often becomes difficult to spend hours attending extended learning and training sessions. Microlearning has become the savior in those circumstances.

Characteristics of Microlearning

• Courses designed for microlearning are usually delivered on smartphones. This means microlearning and mobile learning work parallelly.
• Multiple types of content can be created, including – audio, videos, text, infographics, games, presentations, etc.
• It focuses on one topic, skill, or idea at a time.
• The topics created are short and nowhere more than 20 minutes.
• Everything about microlearning is short, sharp, and quick.

Key Tips for Implementing Microlearning

• Use multimedia: Multimedia, like infographics, video tutorials, and images, help learners understand complex topics. For example, using infographics, you can create mind maps that can be helpful for last-minute revisions before final assessments. 

• Build chunks of information-Break the large eLearning modules and content into manageable chunks or pieces which can be accessed on the go. For example, an hour-long biology lesson video can be broken down into three twenty-minute videos. The smaller the videos, the better will be its consumption and absorption. 

• Include real-life examples-Since microlearning focuses on micro-content, you need to make it more relevant and informative simultaneously. By including real-life examples, learners can relate and understand well. 

• Mini assessments-Assessments are critical for educational institutions to gauge learners' performance. Instead of creating long and descriptive evaluations, you can design mini-assessments like quizzes, multiple-choice-based questions, and branching scenarios that can be completed quickly and easily. 

• Interacting through experiences-Since eLearning content and courses are already small, you can test learners' knowledge by interacting with them through stories. The best example of this is a branching scenario. Under a branching method, you can narrate a story to learners and check how well they respond or act in a given situation. 

• Use mobile integration-Modern learners are mobile users who wish to access the ocean of information with a single click or touch. Integrating microlearning with mobile learning ensures that learners can access information anytime and anywhere. This flexibility boosts their engagement. 

Microlearning for Teaching Using 3D Modeling

3D modeling is a technique used for producing a 3D digital representation of physical objects by maneuvering polygons, vertices, and edges in a simulated 3D environment. This technology is widely used in making prototypes, 3D visualizations, and animations. 

3D modeling can also be used to teach and involve learners in the learning process. Microlearning and 3D modeling are a match made in heaven. They keep learners engaged and excited throughout their eLearning journey and help the students in knowledge retention. Microlearning is an ideal strategy for teaching 3D modeling because it allows you to chop the learning process into small, manageable steps. It can help teachers as well as students in the following ways:

• Since classes are conducted online during the pandemic, distance learners can learn conveniently without being physically present around the specimen. 
• It does away with the need for teachers to carry physical specimens everywhere. 

But there are a few things you need to keep in mind while using microlearning for teaching 3D modeling. Some of them are listed below:

• Make sure that the content is concise and to the point.
• The content is well organized and easy to follow.
• Looking for a tool that is easy to use so that students can get started easily.

There are a lot of tools that can be used to teach students 3D modeling, but we recommend using SelfCAD. SelfCAD is a great 3D modeling software for microlearning because it is easy to use and has a wide range of features. 

With SelfCAD, users can create complex 3D models with ease, and the software also offers a wide range of tutorials and support materials to help anyone get started easily. In addition, SelfCAD’s slicer is compatible with a wide range of 3D printers, making it easy to print designs after one is done with 3D modeling. 

Microlearning, micro training, and nano-learning refer to concise and specific content that helps deliver fast and effective learning. Microlearning is massively beneficial for online learners. We have mentioned some of the benefits below.

Benefits of Microlearning to Learners

1) Better Participation and Enhanced Engagement

With the help of microlearning course content, the students will have an enhanced engagement with the online training material. The content is created in such a way that a quiz pops up after completing every topic or subtopic. This helps in increasing participation and engagement with the subject. By opting for this, the students understand the concept easily.

2) Improves Knowledge Retention

Thinking outside the box illustration. Image source:Freepik

When the content is provided in bits and pieces, it drives more knowledge retention as compared to when the information is provided in lengthy lessons, which results in low interaction with the acquired facts. 

When the content is long, it overburdens the brain and creates a negative learning environment. By engaging your students with small chunks of information, the students will absorb and retain the information. This helps instill a sense of confidence and accomplishment among learners. 

3) Flexible Learning

Microlearning lessons are quite easy to fit into your daily schedule. The students have the flexibility to view the classes on a tablet or a mobile phone, or any other mobile device. This also gives the students flexibility to take the lesson from anywhere and at any time. 

The students will not have to disrupt their daily routine to take the microlearning lessons. Since the lessons are small, they will take less time to consume and can quickly be completed in one sitting. Microlearning and mobile learning are imperative for any online learning program.

4) Offers Diverse Ways of Learning

When the lessons are provided in microlearning, it is divided amongst various digital mediums. This will help in dividing the attention and making the content interesting so that the students do not feel overwhelmed with one medium of teaching for long. 

There are students whose attention span is short when attending traditional classroom learning sessions; for them experiencing audio-visual forms of learning through microlearning will be a tremendous positive change. 

One more benefit of microlearning is that some learning can take place in the classroom and some at home, as the content is easy to consume.

5) Divide Lessons for Better Understanding

Microlearning limits the amount of information delivered to teach one topic at a time. Lessons created for students in microlearning usually last around five minutes or no longer than ten minutes. This can easily be done by breaking the entire lesson into smaller pieces or topics. You can straight away start with the subject of microlearning instead of beginning with a lengthy introduction.

6) Identifies the Skills of The Students

With small bits of information, the educator can identify the competencies they want the students to develop. Apart from the curriculum, they can check what skills the students are lacking and work to improve that skill set. This will help in enhancing the expertise of the students.

7) Easy to Update Content

As the content created on the microlearning system is broken into small pieces of information, it becomes easier to update the content. When you update the sub-topics, it does not affect other topics. This means you can edit any topic at any given time without affecting the other course material. This also helps in saving a lot of time and effort that was previously invested in updating the content online.

8) Focuses Only on Relevance

Microlearning offers exact and enough information to boost their skills, in this case, the topics covered in a given lesson. Microlearning helps in teaching only niche skills.

Conclusion

Microlearning is beneficial for parents, too, as they can easily access the lesson modules and understand them without any issues. Parents will also stay up to date with what is happening in the classroom. 

Microlearning keeps both the parents and the students calm while learning online. You can design and create robust microlearning content by adding social media elements and get the students connected and begin collaborative learning.  

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Enjoy powerful modeling, rendering, and 3D printing tools without the steep learning curve.

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