Thinking Big By Training Small
Have you ever provided a training workshop where you had difficulty keeping your participants engaged?
If so, you may have wondered if the cause was your training content/topic or maybe even your audience. These are valuable things to consider to improve your delivery and provide a more client-focused training experience.
However, have you ever considered how long your training sessions are?
If your day-long training workshops aren’t always getting through to your participants, you may consider changing your approach to something more short form.
Research is showing that the human attention span is getting shorter and shorter. So being able to grab your trainee’s attention ASAP is crucial. Getting their attention from start to finish by delivering training content in multiple, shorter periods will help optimize retention.
There’s a name for this style of training; it’s called microlearning.
Microlearning is a type of training that involves giving short snippets of information at a time. Instead of a sit-down training session that goes for several hours to a whole day, learners take in new information in a bite-size format.
Below is our quick guide to understanding microlearning, its benefits, and how you can use your training materials as a resource for this training style.
Benefits to Microlearning
There are many benefits to delivering training in a microlearning format.
Generally, microlearning is done online due to the short form delivery of the content, making it a convenient and flexible way to train.
But don’t be mistaken; just because microlearning is delivered in small time frames doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a big impact. Microlearning has been proven to increase focus and retention by 80%. By presenting trainees with small amounts of content at a time, they won’t feel too overwhelmed with information overload, which will help them remember more. With a shorter period needed to take in the content, it is easier for trainees to stay motivated from start to finish.
This type of training is a manageable form of self-study that gives you better results as a trainer and prevents burnout for participants.
Integrate microlearning with our training materials
If you feel that microlearning suits your learners better but don’t know where to start, fear not. There are several different ways to adapt our workshop training materials to be compatible with microlearning:
Learning Management System
Our courses have been recently revamped and redesigned to be more modern, interactive, and enjoyable to work through. Each course is 10 modules long. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t divide the content to train with a micro-learning approach. Ask participants to complete a curated selection of modules in spread-out, shorter chunks. It can allow you to provide your trainees with the benefits of microlearning.
Each module ends with a knowledge check of 10 multiple choice questions and a brief quiz that allows trainees to check their understanding and is an excellent addition to microlearning. Research has shown that frequent testing doesn’t just measure learning but promotes it. Testing improves recall, retrieving, and the ability to apply new information. It is known as “the testing effect” or “the retrieval practice effect.”
Another perk to microlearning with our LMS? All pre-loaded courses are mobile-friendly, so you know they’ll look great no matter what device your trainees are using.
Workshop Training Library Instructor-Led Training Kits
While microlearning is generally online, there are still ways to use our instructor-led training materials for a microlearning style delivery. Dividing up modules into smaller chunks and prioritizing the most important content you want your trainees to hone in on can allow you to provide a micro-learning approach. These condensed versions of our training content can be distributed via email for reading or delivered via virtual instructor-led training using software such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
Our library provides more than enough content to develop and implement microlearning programs. Just make sure you condense information carefully to avoid overly fragmenting content. With most of the work done for you, creating smooth microlearning content will be much easier.
Video Companion Kits
Our Video kits are designed to complement our instructor-led materials. We recommend they are used after presenting content from its corresponding module. Our videos provide a practical example of how the training content could be helpful in the workplace. Pairing these with your condensed microlearning content can provide a quick and engaging way to solidify the ideas and topics being covered in the training material. These easy-to-follow video clips help solidify learning objectives, which is what microlearning is all about.
Self-Publishing Library
Our self-publishing library allows you as the trainer to offer a vanity published version of any training workshops in a soft cover book or e-book. Add your name, fill in the about the author section, and include edits and anecdotes to make it your own. It gives you custom training content formatted into chapters, making it highly transferrable for microlearning. Distribute your books, and assign chapters to read on a consistent but widely spread basis. It is a great way to implement microlearning if online learning isn’t ideal for your audience, but you need to provide short-form training.
Conclusion
Sometimes you need to provide a more extended form training format. However, it is always good to understand your options and different techniques for delivering training. Knowing the basics of microlearning allows you to decide on the best way to present your training content.
If your subject matter is highly complex, microlearning may not be the best option. However, it may still be used as an additional tactic to practice applying knowledge or to check your learner’s understanding.
Knowledge is power, so go forward knowing a bit more about your training format options.
Have you ever delivered microlearning before? How did it go? Let us know in the comments below!
Posted by Katelyn Roy on June 23, 2022