Learning by heart
When we think of learning by heart, we normally think of factual knowledge (facts), knowledge that can't be discussed. For example, multiplication tables: whether you agree or not, 4 times 8 will always be 32. The battle of the Plains of Abraham took place in 1759. In short, facts you have to learn by heart.
When it comes to learning a foreign language, we know that five minutes a day pays off in the long run! We're made to repeat ourselves several times, we record the mistakes we make and bring them back day after day until we're fluent, we can evaluate the time taken to answer, thus deducing our level of confidence in our answer choices.
For this type of knowledge (factual knowledge), microlearning is a very interesting tool.
Acquiring specific knowledge
If we want training to integrate specific knowledge, the effectiveness of microlearning undoubtedly depends on the level of complexity of the knowledge in question. But it is possible to achieve this under certain conditions.
Let's imagine we wanted to train a team of customer service representatives (CSRs) to apply the company's CSR principles. We could imagine a series of vignettes (or videos or comic strips) illustrating the difficulties to be overcome and the expected behaviors. The whole thing could be humorous and offered to participants at the rate of one capsule per week. It would probably work... and it could leave a mark if you were wise enough to keep the same characters from one capsule to the next and to link them by a more global story.
The weakness of microlearning is that learning is fragmentary; it's detached, isolated from the rest of our knowledge, because in the space of a few minutes, we can't call on previous knowledge, anchor ourselves in it, present the new knowledge and, what's more, make the link with the professional context. That would exceed the limits of microlearning. Another major weakness is the short duration of these courses.
Microlearning means bite-sized chunks of what we rightly call nuggets. This means that links can be difficult to establish between all these nuggets: links between the nuggets themselves, links with our current knowledge and links with our work context.
If the level of complexity of the knowledge is higher, microlearning will not be able to produce lasting results, because the links just mentioned will not have been properly constructed.
Developing skills
Here too, I think microlearning reaches its limit. How can we facilitate the learning of problem-solving, decision-making, critical thinking or other complex skills with nuggets? It would be astonishing to achieve lasting results, because these complex skills are developed over the long term and while performing tasks in the workplace.
Developing competencies
If you read somewhere that an organization is offering microlearning as a skills development tool, worry! They may not have grasped the fact that skills are such complex cognitive objects that it takes around 5,000 hours of practice to become competent in a particular field. For example, to exercise the skill of MANAGING A PROJECT professionally and smoothly, it will take adequate training followed by around 5000 hours of practice, starting with small-scale projects and gradually increasing in complexity. Microlearning capsules will never replace "structured" learning, nor the hours of practice in authentic situations that are essential to skills development.
One last important detail
Microlearning, because of its focus on efficiency and speed, almost always uses transmissive andragogical techniques: I'll explain it to you, you'll understand... Yes, I'll understand, but that doesn't mean I'll retain it in the short term, and even less so that I'll transfer this supposed learning to my work. That's another limitation to keep in mind.
In conclusion, make sure you choose these activities wisely, or you risk wasting time and money. If it's too good to be true...
To find out more :
Synchronous training: designing engaging learning environments
