Designing Microlearning for Workplace Training
Try doing a quick search on current trends in instructional design (ID) or learning and development (L&D), and microlearning will likely appear near the top of the list. I first heard about microlearning in 2019 and thought it was a fad linked to the rise of TikTok, as in learning to do something in one minute or less (fast forward to 2023, and some currently refer to this as "nanolearning"). I found a book by Karl M. Kapp and Robyn A. Defelice titled Microlearning: Short and Sweet, and it clarified things for me, seeing as everyone's definition of microlearning is somehow so different from others. Since reading the book, I've learned more about microlearning from Shannon Tipton at Learning Rebels and, of course, through my graduate studies at the American College of Education (ACE).
In this post, I'll define microlearning as I understand it, explain how it differs from "lesson chunks," show how designing a microlearning lesson is a similar process as planning any other lesson, and provide an example of microlearning in action in the context of workplace training.
Defining Microlearning
According to Kapp and Defelice in Microlearning: Short and Sweet (2019):
"Microlearning is an instructional unit that provides a short engagement in an activity intentionally designed to elicit a specific outcome from the participant."
What I appreciate about the authors is that they went on to explain each part of their definition, which I'll paraphrase, add to, and comment on:
Instructional unit: A learning or performance-enabling experience that contains everything a learner needs to achieve a specific learning outcome. In workplace training, there is an emphasis on all things performance-enabling. ("Learning" refers to coding and storing new information in long-term memory, and "performance" refers to recalling existing information to complete a task, both of which can be strengthened by microlearning.)
Short engagement: Microlearning units usually take around 5 minutes or less to complete, including any learner assessments such as a quiz. However, having 5-minute units is not a hard and fast rule (more on this below).
Engagement: In the context of microlearning, an engagement is a voluntary agreement by the learner to be involved in the learning experience. These engagements can be forced (such as through the points, badges, and levels of gamification), sensed (like hearing fun sound design or seeing captivating motion graphics in an educational app), or self-prompted ("I need to know this information, so I'll pay attention").
Activity: At some point during a microlearning unit (and I am adopting the term “unit” from here on), the learner needs to do some activity or exercise. Passively watching a short video and then leaving the lesson doesn't count, and if it did, then all of YouTube and the like could be considered microlearning. The learner activity can be mental or physical, subtle or direct.
Intentionally designed: If we take hour-long lessons and chop them into arbitrary 5-minute chunks, we haven't made microlearning units. We must design and develop microlearning units as we do longer lessons at different scales (macro, meso, and micro levels are all at play here).
Elicit a specific outcome: As with any learning experience, the first thing to decide is what a learner can do by the end. I like to use the following formula for writing learning objectives or outcomes: If students/trainees have learned [A], then they should be able to [B] by completing [C] with [D] accuracy. I'd use this formula for any length of a learning unit.
Participant: The authors use the word participant instead of learner, student, trainee, etc., as in someone who participates in a microlearning unit. They reason that, as stated above, microlearning is about learning and performing, and the term "participant" works in all scenarios. (I neither agree nor disagree because it does work, though the authors were trying too hard to differentiate themselves from other experts and their definitions.)
Going back to “short engagement” for a second. It seems that the "micro" of microlearning is the part that instructional designers have emphasized too much. Shannon Tipton (2022) has my favorite quip, which everyone should remember: microlearning should be "as long as necessary and as short as possible." It doesn't make sense to determine the optimal length of microlearning units because there isn't one – it’s a myth, as Tipton would say. As with any design, it all depends on the context, and with instructional design, it's the learning context. In interviews and presentations I’ve seen with Tipton, I've heard her use the word "appropriate" to describe the duration of microlearning units, and I think that's the best choice.
So, how would I define microlearning? Let me work things out a bit more, and I'll get back to you at the end.
Isn't Microlearning the Same as Lesson Chunking?
The short answer is no, they're different, and I'll explain. Imagine that you teach an hour-long class or training session. Suppose you spend the entire time on one activity (like a lecture) and go in-depth into one topic for too long. In that case, you risk overloading the learner's working memory with too much information, which will likely be lost and not stored in long-term memory. To manage a learner's cognitive load, a best practice would be to segment the 60 minutes into smaller "chunks," as they're called. Chunking a lesson gives the learner time to focus on something new with their working memory as slightly older information is coded and stored for long-term use.
If lesson chunks are short(-ish), and microlearning units are appropriately short, how are they different? Tipton (2022) distinguishes the two like so:
Lesson Chunks have a Beginning > Middle > To-be-continued
Microlearning Content have a Beginning > Middle > End (“Content” is Tipton’s use)
A single lesson chunk tends to be continued into the next learning chunk; the chunks are connected and comprise the entire learning unit. In contrast, microlearning content is a complete learning unit in and of itself. A more interesting question, to me, is whether a microlearning unit can be separated into chunks. Is microlearning too short to be chunked? Does a microlearning unit have parts/segments/sections/events?
Microlearning and Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction
Instead of focusing on the "micro," let's focus on the "learning." And to do so, I'll briefly leave microlearning. If I were to design a standard in-classroom lesson, I'd probably start with Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction because, in my opinion, it's a solid framework built around how learning works. Here is a brief overview of the nine events (Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction | Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning | Northern Illinois University, n.d.):
Gain the learner's attention – When people enter a learning environment, they come in with thoughts and feelings from other parts of their lives. If you want them to engage with the lesson in your space, you must gain their attention and prepare them for the subject matter. Personally, I like to acknowledge the other thoughts and feelings in the room and invite learners to first put them aside in the safe space I’ve created for them. Then, I’ll ask a thought provoking question that’s adjacent to the topic of the lesson, which may act as a segue from the outside world to the lesson.
Inform the learner of the learning objectives – When someone instructs me to do something, I’ll ask, "OK, but why?" That’s who I am. All anyone needs before diving into a lesson is to understand what the intended result is and how they're supposed to get there. In other words, “What is expected of me?”
Stimulate the recall of prior knowledge – For new information to be coded into long-term memory through working memory, prior knowledge must be recalled to map one to the other, the new to the old. This event also plays into a learner's self-efficacy, as in, "Remember that thing you learned? Since you learned it so well, you can learn this, too. Believe it."
Present the lesson – This is the main event for the instructor, their big performance. This is where learners will sense new information in the learning environment, some information will make its way to the working memory, and, over time, through spaced recall, information will be stored in long-term memory. But it all depends on how the instructor presents the lesson in the learning environment in the learning contxt.
Provide the learner with guidance – In a cognitivist manner, this event is where you "help students learn how to learn" by providing them with strategies for organizing the new content to better store it in the brain for later recall. It’s not possible for us to reach into our brains and manually organize information (that’d be using our brain to organize our brain, which would get loopy). Instead, we suggest things like spaced recall, when we strategically bring up previous information at planned time intervals in order to remember it and practice performing (speaking as a musician, I do mean “practice performing”).
Elicit performance through practice – At this point in a lesson, learners actively engage with new content and apply what they have learned, which can take many forms. This is crucial because it shows if students understand the lesson's content correctly. This is the much needed practice before the big performance, the final assessment.
Provide feedback on the learner's practice – Once learners have practiced skills and engaged with the new content, they should receive feedback that will help with future performances that showcase new skills. Learners should also be encouraged to self-evaluate and evaluate each other's work.
Assess the learner's performance – This is the main event for the learner. They will demonstrate their understanding of new skills through a final performance (a test, a presentation, a project, etc.) and receive a final assessment from the instructor. This event will determine whether learners have achieved the outcomes established in event #2.
Enhance the retention of new knowledge – One of the best ways to help learners retain new knowledge is to place it in a real-world context that will soon impact their lives. Show them how to apply lessons (and the "lessons behind the lessons") in personal, social, and collaborative contexts.
Through these events, we can see learning take place over time. And now, let's get back to microlearning with two notes. First, it's helpful to remember that Gagné's nine events are scaleable. These events can occur in a single session, such as a class or a training session, or they can be scaled up to a more extended unit spanning many class meetings or training sessions. And since they can be scaled up, it begs the question, "Can Gangé's nine events of instruction be scaled down?" Second, it is assumed that the instructor and the learner communicate at some point during the events, whether or not the learning environment is hybrid (space) or blended (time), for feedback and assessment. For the most part, learners are on their own during microlearning while they’re “in the field.” So, if Gagné's events were to be used as a framework for designing microlearning units, can all nine of them be utilized, such as those where a learner receives feedback from a teacher? Since microlearning lessons are relatively short, would there be enough time for all nine events?
A Word About Workplace Training
Let's switch gears and talk about learning in the workplace, and then we’ll get back to microlearning. I've been a teacher for 25+ years, and it has become my lens for seeing the world. When I look at a workplace environment (sidenote: I have plenty of non-teaching work experience), I see workers and others tasked with managing them. In my eyes, this relationship is fundamentally the same as the one between students and teachers. In both relationships, the one leading is (hopefully) more experienced and (hopefully) invested in the others’ growth toward becoming self-reliant, self-sufficient, autonomous, mature human beings (Knowles, 1980). A teacher helps students learn the subject matter, of course, and how to function in the world through "lessons behind the lessons." Managers help workers succeed in their jobs, I hope, and achieve their personal and professional goals through "lessons behind the lessons." But that's macro, big-picture stuff – let's get micro.
Here's an imaginary micro-scenario for you: I'm your manager, and I would be grateful if you and your coworkers could learn this new skill, which, I humbly admit, I'm not an expert in. I'm bringing in a professional development trainer to conduct a 1-hour training session to teach you this new skill that will have a positive impact on our business. Fast-forward one week. I hope that the training went well and you learned the new skill. We're gearing up so you can use it in your day-to-day work, so get ready! Fast forward two months. OK! I need you to go into the field and finally use that new skill. Do you remember how to do it? Not really? Not the details? Fortunately, the PD trainer created some short, engaging microlearning units to jog your memory. And it's all on your phone in a fantastic app, so get out there, you! Oh, thank the stars for microlearning! [And scene. The "imaginary" part is that I wouldn't be an expert in the new skill. I'm kidding.]
We can see that microlearning units are perfect for "just-in-time" training when workers need a refresher post-instruction – this is my favorite use case, and there are other useful ones. These brain boosting, bite-sized units can be consumed formally, meaning that workers are required to view them at a specific time and date, or they can be informal, meaning that they can do so on their own time (Kapp & Defelice, 2019). Either way, workers are getting the information they need and when needed to succeed in their work.
Microlearning in Action – An Example
For an assignment in DL5763 - Trends in Instructional Design at ACE, I designed a microlearning unit around a workplace training experience of my choice. In May of 2023, I visited Sweetwater, a well-known music retailer (and where I shop for music gear), on behalf of Bitwig (where I'm a certified trainer). My job was to inform Sweetwater's Sales Engineers (musicians/pro audio experts + salespeople = sales engineers) about Bitwig Studio Version 5 (BWS V5), which would be released the following summer. There were three main components to the training sessions:
The new features and main selling points of BWS V5.
The new product tiers.
The price points for the tiers that follow the US MAP (minimum advertised price) set by Bitwig.
For my microlearning assignment at ACE, I created a hypothetical training unit that I could have sent out to Sweetwater's sales engineers to supplement the training sessions I provided. And, I based my design on, you guessed it, Gagné's nine events of instruction.
Below is a link to the agenda (which I made in Canva) that informs trainees what will be in the lesson; I imagined sales engineers receiving an email with a link to the agenda (Event 1: Gain the learner's attention), and then they go to the microlearning. I'll also include the link to the microlearning unit (which I made in EdApp) if you want to go right to it:
Links to the Learning Agenda and the Microlearning Unit
Microlearning is typically built around a single learning outcome, and my learning objective follows that format:
If Sweetwater's Sales Engineers have learned about the four (4) new pricing tiers of Bitwig Studio Version 5, they should be able to match a tier name with the associated tier price by completing a short, interactive matching quiz with 100% accuracy. (Bloom's Revised Taxonomy, Level 1, Remembering)
This workplace training experience is designed to help someone remember information in the field post-instruction (PD training). When a sales engineer is on the phone with a customer, they can look up product prices on their computer. But it would be better if some things were top of mind, like MAP prices when new products are rolled out.
Let's see how Gangé's events match with my microlearning design. I start the lesson with a survey about BWS V5, an engaging welcome message from me, and an overview of the entire microlearning unit – these approximate to events 1 through 3 but done very quickly and in a different order. Next, I present the lesson through images of pricing crib sheets, and I provide the learner with guidance by showing the US MAP prices together – events 4 and 5. Then, I have the sales engineers play a timed Memory-style game where they match the product tier name and price (practice with feedback, events 6 and 7), followed by a short quiz with immediate feedback (performance and assessment, event 8). Finally, I provided links for sales engineers to obtain more information about Bitwig that could help them in their calls with Sweetwater customers – this aligns with event 9. My microlearning lesson isn't an exact implementation of Gagné's events, but using the framework was helpful for my design. In my opinion, all nine events of instruction can be scaled down and repurposed for the use of microlearning experiences. And, I think microlearning units can be chunked.
From a technical standpoint, I found EdApp easy to use and had all the learner interactions and assessments I needed. There were some interface issues where things didn't make sense, and sometimes I wanted to build a slide from scratch without templates, but I plan on using the platform again to design microlearning units. And then Canva – what can I say about Canva that hasn't already been said? As someone who scoffed at it for years, I'm now a Canva convert and am thoroughly impressed with its feature set and sharing capabilities. I will never use a template and mix it up a bit for a project I work on, but having a mini design studio in the cloud is exactly what I need to work quickly and efficiently.
My (Current) Definition of Microlearning
So, finally, how would I define microlearning? I want to say that designing a microlearning experience is just like designing any other learning experience, but it's scaled down and takes the "just-in-time, (re)learn-it-when-you need-it-so-you-don't-forget-it” reality of the situation into account. Nevertheless, here's my current working definition, which may only work for me:
Microlearning lessons are short-form, appropriately sized instructional units designed to supplement, reinforce, and align with long-form instructional units.
In other words, I believe microlearning cannot exist in a vacuum. It needs to be preceded by and coupled with meso-learning and its learning outcomes, and both need to align with overarching intended macro-learning outcomes. In workplace training, the ideal would be for employees first to experience synchronous in-person or online training sessions. These sessions would be followed by a series of microlearning units specifically designed to deliver bits of information from the training when employees need it. To learn about the other use cases of microlearning, I suggest reading Chapter 3 of Microlearning: Short and Sweet.
References
Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction | Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning | Northern Illinois University. (n.d.). Northern Illinois University. https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide/gagnes-nine-events-of-instruction.shtml
Kapp, K. M., & Defelice, R. A. (2019). Microlearning: Short and Sweet. American Society for Training and Development.
Knowles, M. S. (1980). The Modern Practice of Adult Education.
Tipton, S. (2022, May 1). SMALL-SCALE LEARNING CAN REAP BIG REWARDS: Myths about microlearning are preventing the modality from being as effective as it can be. TD Magazine, 76(5), 36.
