How To Increase Engagement And Knowledge Retention
Bite-sized learning strategies become more popular over the years thanks to their ability to take information and make it more manageable from a knowledge retention and time management perspective. But one of the hardest parts of converting your training into bite-sized learning is recognizing what information is important and what can be left out. It takes a lot of hard work and communication with your development team to assure your content is concise and impactful.
Shortening Vs. Condensing
You most likely have material already stashed away that can be repurposed into microlearning training content [1]. By either shortening content duration or by taking out unnecessary information that bogs down a training, you can get a head start on creating your bite-sized learning. For instance, if you recorded a half-hour webinar you can either condense it down to 10 minutes of the most relevant information, or you could shorten the video into five or six modules that are task or skill-specific. Often the best way to proceed is to condense info instead of shortening because condensing allows you to cherry-pick the most important information, whereas shortening is mostly just about cutting downtime.
Creating Bite-Sized Learning Content
Because you may be taking what was once perhaps a 10-plus page course of text and condensing it into say a 5-minute video, it is important that you are strategic in your training delivery methods [2]. This process will entail constant communication with your content development team in the content design strategy stages and throughout the design process as you make revisions to make sure critical information isn’t left out.
After you’ve decided on your learning content’s intent and how you’re going to go about creating it, you will want to map out your information and make sure it is organized in a way that will make sense. This will entail outlining how many microlearning courses you will need to make, as well as what pertinent information needs to go into each module so that your employees get the knowledge they need without being overloaded. Some things to keep in mind:
- Can a learning objective be explained in five minutes or less? (About 900 words or less written out)
- Can your content be broken into small pieces while still maintaining the learning objective?
Once you’ve settled on a design strategy (text to video, infographics, or FAQs), it is time to decide on the training tools you are going to use to bring your bite-sized learning to life. Depending on what you do, you will need to use a different authoring product to achieve the desired result. Our in-house HTML5 content creation platform, Designlab, empowers designers to build engaging eLearning assets and custom activities. But there are other authoring tools on the market that serve similar purposes.
Microlearning Best Practices
Focus On Must-Learn Content
Remember when you were in school and it was hard to not highlight the entire chapter as being important? That is what you absolutely want to avoid when creating bite-sized learning. Avoid throwing a whole novel at them. Ideally, each module should stick to around five to seven minutes, so being precise in what you want your employees to know is important.
Aligning Content With Training Needs
Effective microlearning cuts all the extra noise and drives engagement. Knowing what speaks to the audience you are targeting is important since you only have a small window to lock their attention and retention. While some information is great for videos and some learners may thrive on receiving their knowledge that way, other information may be better in a FAQ sheet or process checklist. Understanding not only your needs, but your employees' needs will make your training more effective.
Using Learning Activities
Learning aids such as role-playing, scenario-based learning, and serious games help stimulate your learner by making them apply what they are learning in a safe environment. Active learning ensures material will not only be remembered but can be applied in multiple contexts within an employee’s daily tasks long after training is over.
This is particularly important when discussing new hire onboarding and the need to shape behaviors toward the company culture. Tools such as an introductory video to your company, mission statement, values, or even an infographic that explains your company structure can ease new employees into their new environment within your company without overwhelming them. Keeping onboarding activities short and to the point helps employees understand how it applies to their jobs.
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