Getting Started With Microlearning—6 Common Questions Answered
Microlearning is a buzzed-about approach that even people outside the learning and development field might have heard of. But for all that talk, it’s not always clear what this term really means. If you’re looking for some answers, we’ve got them! That said, you might want to grab a snack beforehand, because when it comes to understanding microlearning, some of the best analogies involve food. 1. What exactly is microlearning? Think of your typical robust e-learning course as a hearty meal. It’s got a lot of different things to offer, and if you’re famished, it’s likely just what you’re looking for. But it also takes a lot of time to prepare and eat. And if you’re just a little peckish, it could be way more food than you actually want. Microlearning, on the other hand, is like a simple snack. It’s focused on just one item you can take it in quickly, and if you just need a nibble, it hits the spot. And as with a snack, you can combine multiple microlearning courses to make something more substantial—think tapas for learning. When people need to make online training, they often gravitate to the full-meal style for courses. And there is a time and place for that approach. But often your learners just need a little learning snack that quickly solves a problem and is easy to fit into a busy workday. That’s where microlearning comes in! 2. Is microlearning just training that’s short? Being bite-size is just part of the recipe. That’s because being short doesn’t automatically equal a good learning experience. Think about taking a one-hour video lecture and cutting it into twelve five-minute chunks. It’s going to be awkward to watch because it wasn’t designed to be viewed in small segments. And it’s still going to take an hour to get through. Good microlearning, on the other hand, is purposefully designed around the strengths and weaknesses of a short format. It breaks information or skill-building content into small, easy-to-consume bits, typically with each one laser-focused on achieving a single learning objective. With microlearning, creators refine the content to only what someone needs to cover that objective—nothing more, nothing less. To double down on efficiency, designers also focus on paring down copy as much as possible without losing clarity, and using multimedia and interactions when they’re the faster or clearer way to explain something. 3. What makes it effective? When it comes to learning, microlearning has lots of things going for it. The short length makes it feel approachable: When you give learners focused, easily consumable bites of content instead of a thousand-slide mega-course, getting through the content feels achievable instead of overwhelming. Being bite-size also makes it bingeable: Have you ever sat down to nibble on a few chips and then accidentally eaten half the bag? It’s easy to lose track of how much you’re consuming when you’re taking it in in small bites. While that’s sometimes annoying when you’re snacking, it can be a big plus when it comes to learning. Since well-designed microlearning content is easy to ingest, learners might inadvertently binge more content than they would have in longer courses. It respects learners’ time: Professional development is important, but often difficult for people to fit into a busy schedule. So providing a streamlined version of the content they need without any filler or bloat is a powerful way to make learners feel you respect their workload. It’s easy to use in the moment: Splitting up learning into smaller, more targeted chunks makes it easier for learners to find exactly what they’re looking for in their moment of need. Learners can log on, find information quickly, and immediately apply it on the job. 4. How short does my microlearning need to be? While you might see numbers like “under ten minutes” or “under five minutes” floated around, there’s actually no agreed-upon standard for how short something has to be to count as microlearning. That ambiguity is one thing creators can find frustrating with the concept of microlearning. It also means team members and stakeholders might not realize they’re all working off of different definitions. Instead of focusing on time, a better guideline is to have each microlearning experience you create focus on a single, targeted learning objective. That will naturally guide your content toward being bite-size. 5. If it works so well, should I always use microlearning? Microlearning is useful for a lot of situations. But no single format works best in every situation. Microlearning can be a good fit if the information makes sense in small segments and it’s easy to see ways to break your content down into chunks. For instance, this approach would work well if you needed to teach people how to put together a few quick party snacks. But if the topic needs a longer, deeper dive to explain, separating that content into short pieces will make it harder for learners to wrap their heads around. Think of trying to teach an in-depth course on French cooking. Most dishes are complex enough that a short lesson wouldn’t get the job done. And even if you could make that work, the breadth of the course topic would lead to an almost unmanageable number of mini-lessons. In that case, it’s easier to give learners longer-form lessons that cover each dish from start to finish. 6. Do I need to use a specific medium or app to create microlearning? Not at all! You can use whatever medium—or mix of mediums—works best for your content and learners. And there’s no special app you need to buy to make something micro either. That said, with the popularity of short-form content, some apps have added functionality to make it easier to create—like the new Microlearning feature in Rise 360. So keep an eye out for how your tools can help speed up microlearning design and development. Wrap-Up Microlearning is a buzzy term. But once you get past the hype, it’s easy to see situations this approach is well suited for. Want more ideas for how to use microlearning in the real world? Check out these tips and examples: 3 Tips for Creating Effective Microlearning Courses 4 Advantages of Microlearning (With Customizable Examples!) 8 Business Use Cases for Microlearning Rise 360: Interactive Microlearning Infographic Rise 360: Illustrated Landlord Pet Guidelines Rise 360: Food Industry Microlearning Have an additional example of microlearning that you think works particularly well? Be sure to share it in the comments. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Kick-Start Open Enrollment With These Employee Resources
Open enrollment season is coming—and with it, the annual scramble as employees struggle to decode confusing insurance terms and evaluate benefit options. As a learning and development professional, you can do your part to help them make the best choices for themselves and their families—and save your HR team from answering the same questions over and over—by providing everyone with educational resources. The following customizable templates and ready-to-use courses can give you a head start on developing on-demand open enrollment resources. Click on the links below to preview them or skip to the video at the end of the article to learn how to add these examples to your Rise 360 dashboard for editing. Full-Length Courses 1. Understanding Your Health Care Benefits Create a one-stop resource for employees about their plan options using this full-length course template. It includes placeholder sections for medical, vision, dental, life, disability, FSA, HSA, and wellness benefit information—and you can always add your own sections for other perks you offer. 2. Choosing Health Insurance: Traditional vs. High-Deductible Plans (PPO vs. HDHP) For extra support comparing the differences between traditional and high-deductible health plans, this course provides employees with descriptions, advantages, disadvantages, and sample cost-of-care scenarios of each. You can ship the course as is—or customize it with details specific to your plan options. Microlearning Courses 1. A Quick Guide to Open Enrollment A perfect follow-up summary to a live information session, this microlearning template circumvents “open enrollment overload.” Brief, editable text explains what open enrollment is, when it starts and ends, how to make elections, and where employees can find more information. 2. Key Terms for Comparing Health Insurance Plans A must-have resource for open enrollment season, this micro-glossary helps employees understand the terminology health insurers use. That knowledge will allow them to make informed decisions about their health care costs and coverage. 3. Health Insurance Cost-of-Care Scenarios Beyond a list of plan details and definitions, employees need help putting this information in context. What do these costs and benefits actually mean when an employee needs to see a doctor or specialist, get surgery, stay at a hospital, etc.? Make it easy for employees to compare out-of-pocket medical costs for common health care scenarios by filling in this template. How to Use and Customize These Examples If you’re an Articulate 360 subscriber or trialer, you can access and edit all the examples linked throughout this post directly from your Rise 360 dashboard. Simply click Create New, choose Course or Microlearning, and search for and select the template you want to use, as shown in the video below: Wrap-Up Open enrollment is a busy time—but your efforts as a learning and development professional can make a real impact. By developing training resources for employees, you not only make it easy for them to find information and choose the plan that best fits their needs, you also save your HR team time by providing answers to common questions. This frees them up to help employees who need more in-depth support. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter. And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.5 Mental Health Resources You Can Share With Your Learners Today
Did you know that May is Mental Health Awareness Month? Individuals aren’t the only ones impacted by mental health challenges—businesses can feel the effects, too. Polling from Gallup indicates that employees with mental health challenges miss four times more work than those who rate their mental health positively. This lost productivity costs the economy some $47.6 billion annually. As an e-learning designer, you can help employees feel supported by providing resources that raise awareness of the importance of mental health and outline helpful tips for improving it. If you’re an Articulate 360 subscriber or trialer, you can get the ball rolling quickly by using the ready-to-use mental health training materials in Rise 360—just in time for Mental Health Awareness Month. Curious what’s available? Check out some of the new releases below. You can learn how to customize these templates for your own company and training needs at the end of this article. 1. Stress Busters Microlearning Course Encourage employees to feel more relaxed with the 9 Simple Stress Busters You Can Do Today microlearning course. Moving through this quick learning exercise reveals proven strategies for relieving stress and activating feel-good endorphins. 2. Breathing Exercises Microlearning Course Anyone feeling tense can benefit from the Melt Away Stress With a 3-Minute Breathing Exercise microlearning course. With each successive swipe through a guided breathing exercise and accompanying graphics, learners will feel more peaceful and serene. 3. Feel Your Feelings Microlearning Course Reinforce the message that it’s OK not to be OK with the Feel Your Feelings microlearning course. This quick activity helps people process difficult emotions by prompting them to name and explore their feelings from a place of compassion and understanding. 4. Get Grounded Microlearning Course Support employees through worry spirals and mental fog with the Escape Anxiety With a 5-Minute Grounding Practice microlearning course. Moving through this 5-minute practice roots learners in the here and now as they engage their senses of taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. 5. Day-by-Day Challenge Course To offer access to a more in-depth daily challenge, check out the 5-Day Challenge To Improve Mental Health course. Each day, learners can refer to this course, explore a different facet of mental health, and follow simple exercises for putting concepts into practice. Wrap-Up Providing mental health resources as part of your business training is a win-win. Employees have access to support at work, and businesses benefit from employees who are less stressed and anxious. The examples above can help you get started, but the sky’s the limit for how you can use Articulate’s creator tools to achieve your business training objectives. Interested in sharing one of the supportive resources with your team? If you’re an Articulate 360 subscriber or trialer, you can access and edit all the examples linked throughout this post directly fromyour Rise 360 dashboard. Simply click Create New, choose Microlearning and select the template you want to use, as shown in the video below: Looking for even more ready-to-use, customizable mental health content? You'll find those in your Rise 360 dashboard too. Just click Create New, choose Course, and then select Mix & Match Lessons. Here are some relevant topic categories to check out: Stress Management: covers stress management fundamentals, stress and work performance, and strategies to relieve stress. Health and Wellness: includes dealing with difficult emotions and life events, exercise, forming healthy habits, mental health awareness in the workplace, positive psychology fundamentals, and positive psychology in the workplace. Resilience: features content on resilience fundamentals, building career resilience, leadership and resilience, emotional and physical resilience, and thriving through challenges. Be sure to also follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and come back to E-Learning Heroes for more advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.10 Most Popular E-Learning Heroes Articles of 2023
As we wrap up 2023 and look ahead to all the things to come in 2024, now is the perfect time to catch up on the most popular content shared in the E-Learning Heroes Community in 2023. To save you time, we’ve rounded up the best of the best for your review. Check them out: 4 AI Basics Every E-Learning Creator Needs To Know in 2023. Get up to speed on artificial intelligence with this quick introductory article. Introducing the Articulate Beta Program. Learn about this new opportunity to share your feedback on our latest features. 4 Impactful E-Learning Trends for 2023. See how you can shape the future of learning by following these strategies in your workplace. 8 Business Use Cases for Microlearning. Discover how to leverage short-form courses for these common workplace situations (and get creating faster with customizable examples!). 4 Ways To Choose an E-Learning Color Palette. Check out these tips for curating the perfect hues for your next project. How To Write Alt Text for the 4 Most Common Types of Images in E-Learning. Explore alternative text best practices for handling the most common image types in e-learning. 6 Ways the E-Learning Heroes Community Makes Your Job Easier. Learn more about all the resources, discussions, articles, and connections this site offers to help you work faster and create more innovative projects. 4 Advantages of Microlearning. Discover the main reasons e-learning designers and learners are loving this bite-size approach to training. 3 Ways To Boost Your Articulate 360 Skills. Whether you’re a total newbie or you’ve dabbled in our apps before, these tips will help you get to the next level. 3 Things That Can Make or Break Your E-Learning Design. Craft beautiful and effective online training from the start with these helpful ideas. We hope you find these articles helpful! If we missed any other E-Learning Heroes articles you liked in 2023, comment below and let us know. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.6 Free Resources To Jump-Start Learning About Disabilities in Your Org
According to the World Health Organization, 16% of the global population lives with a significant disability today—and that number is growing. This means that you’re likely to work with people who have disabilities, if not experience a disability yourself. Learning and development professionals have the chance to offer training that unifies teams around the subject of disability—and if you haven’t started these discussions already, Disability Pride Month marks a great time to begin. New and updated microlearning courses and templates can give you a head start on developing nuanced, inclusive learning opportunities. Keep reading to explore what’s available and how you can customize it for your teams. How To Request Disability Accommodations at Work (Microlearning Course) Live Preview of Disability Accommodations Template Asking for help can be overwhelming. Give employees the tools they need to get the conversation started with managers by providing them with this helpful microlearning course that covers their rights and reviews common reasonable accommodations. Invisible Disabilities in the Workplace: Kentay’s Story (Microlearning Course) Live Preview of Invisible Disabilities Template Guide learners through realistic workplace conflicts around disability with this story-driven microlearning centered around Kentay, who’s considering disclosing his invisible disability to his boss after a few mistakes at work. A Quick Guide To Talking About Disabilities (Microlearning Course) Live Preview of Talking About Disabilities Template Teach learners how to keep their workplace discussions about disability respectful and walk them through the answers to some common questions like: What defines a disability? What makes a disability “visible” or “invisible”? How do you talk about someone else’s disability? How To Identify and Stop Using Ableist Language (Microlearning Course) Live Preview of Ableist Language Template Even well-intentioned people can fall prey to ableism if they don’t consider the impact of their words. Use this microlearning to help learners improve their ability to identify and avoid ableist language. ADA Compliance for Employees and Managers (Placeholder Templates) Live Preview of ADA Compliance for Employees Template Live Preview of ADA Compliance for Managers Template The Americans with Disabilities Act outlines rules and regulations concerning the treatment of workers with disabilities. Compliance with the ADA is legally required and helps organizations ensure their policies are inclusive. Employees must understand ADA compliance–and that’s where these templates can help. You can use them to give your teams an overview of what the ADA says and outline your organization’s approach to ADA compliance. One template can help you develop a course for all employees, and the other includes specific information for managers. In both, customizable sections give you a chance to share specific, personal examples of how your organization supports people of all abilities. Wrap-Up A healthy, productive workplace requires teams to understand how to approach the topic of disability with respect and compassion. These easy-to-use prebuilt templates provide an ideal starting point. Sharing these microlearning courses and templates with your team is easy. Just go to your Rise 360 dashboard, click the Create New button, select Course or Microlearning, and search for the desired template. And if you’re looking for more soft skills training for your teams, you can find that in your Rise 360 dashboard as well. Here are some topics to get you started: Health and Wellness, including mental health in the workplace and dealing with difficult emotions or life events. Communication, including writing well, verbal communication, and communicating with empathy. Organizational Culture, including strategies for inclusive communication. Want to use and customize these templates, but don’t have Rise 360? Start a free 30-day trial. And subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest templates, product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice sent directly to your inbox. If you have questions, please share them in the comments.Shift Behavior One Message at a Time With a Microlearning Drip Campaign
The choice between e-learning formats is simple, right? Use microlearning for content that can be explained quickly and courses for more complex information. Well, that’s the typical formula. But some situations don’t fit neatly into either of those two boxes. For instance, what if you have enough content for a course, but your learners don’t have time to complete it all in one sitting? Or maybe they have plenty of time, but the information is too overwhelming to take in all at once. Or perhaps the content feels bloated as microlearning but sparse as a course. In times like these, consider a third option: a microlearning drip campaign. What’s a Drip Campaign? If you’ve ever received a series of marketing emails—for instance, after signing up for a free trial, buying a product online, or creating a new account—then you’ve experienced a drip campaign firsthand! This marketing technique uses a series of automated emails spread over time to encourage people to engage with a product or service. Sometimes the goal is to get you to become a customer, such as moving from a trial to a paid account or purchasing an item you left in your online shopping cart. But they’re also used to teach people how to get the most value from a recent purchase—a useful way to keep customers happy and encourage repeat business. What makes drip campaigns so effective is every message is short and targeted, so even time-crunched people are inclined to read them. But those small messages can build on each other over time to inspire readers to take action or change their behavior. That’s great for slowly convincing someone to buy something or encouraging them to renew a subscription. And that same strategy can be effective for delivering training content to your learners. How Can I Use a Drip Campaign for Learning? Shifting the drip campaign concept to a learning context is relatively easy. Each message in a marketing drip campaign functions essentially the same way microlearning does—they keep things short and useful by focusing on a single objective in each message. So making a microlearning drip campaign is as simple as creating a set number of microlearning experiences on a theme, setting them up in a logical order, and getting them out to your learners in short bursts over time. How Do I Decide What Content My Campaign Should Cover? The start of this process works like most e-learning projects. You sift through the information you need to cover, the goals for the project, and what you know about your audience to tease out the core points or learning objectives for your project. Each one you identify has the potential to become a separate microlearning message in your campaign. A drip campaign, though, has another factor to consider—audience engagement over time. As you’ve probably noticed from your own habits, you’ll only open so many emails in a series before losing interest. That’s why most marketing drip campaigns often keep the number of messages they send in the single digits. If the concepts are relatively straightforward or your audience is swamped with other tasks, consider paring down your campaign to just a handful of microlearning experiences. But if your topic is complex, something your audience is deeply interested in, or requires regular revisiting to make it stick, your learners may have the appetite for a longer campaign. Does the Messaging Order Matter? Yes! Being strategic about the order of your content can help you trim down your microlearning messages and make them easier to grasp. For instance: Sharing process steps in chronological order typically makes them easier to understand. Starting with the simplest aspects of complex concepts can make your campaign topic feel more approachable. Having each microlearning piece build on the themes of previous ones can streamline your messaging and make complicated topics easier to parse. Starting your campaign with a strong hook for why it should matter to your learners—like how this content will make their work easier or sharing a story about what can go wrong when people don’t know this information—can motivate them to keep opening your subsequent messages. What Medium Is Best for Microlearning? Lots of mediums work well for the streamlined and focused approach that microlearning takes. So you have a wide range of choices to pick from, including short e-learning experiences (which you can build as usual or using the microlearning feature in Rise 360), videos, interactive scenarios, infographics, quick learning games, email newsletters, texts, and podcasts. And you can always combine multiple mediums too! That said, not every medium works equally well in every circumstance. So as you’re narrowing down your options, consider which ones best meet the needs of your content, audience, and distribution method. How Can I Share These Microlearning Messages if I Don’t Need to Track Completion? You’ve created your microlearning experiences. Now it’s time to drip them out to your learners—either by embedding them in messages or hosting them elsewhere and sharing links. Thankfully, you don’t need to manually email each learner every message in your campaign. Instead, take advantage of tools like these to speed up delivery: Automated Email Services (e.g., Mailchimp or MailerLite): With these marketing tools, you can set up your messages and timing just once and have the campaign fire off as many times as needed. And they often include ways to customize your campaign for your learners, such as sending slightly different information based on each recipient’s role or emailing similar content again if a learner didn’t open the previous email. Messaging Apps (e.g., Slack or WhatsApp): If every member of your audience uses the same messaging app, consider using it to push content out to a lot of people fast. And depending on the messaging app you choose, automations and Zapier integrations may be able to handle some of the scheduling and sending processes for you. Mail Merge: If you have zero budget or can’t use outside tools, this common email feature is here to help. Once you set up each drip campaign message and a mailing list, Mail Merge can do all the tedious work of addressing and sending each email. Mass Texting Tools: These services allow you to quickly send out your microlearning messages to a large number of people via text. Social Media: If your campaign is public facing, a cost-effective distribution option is to push each message out through a social media platform. What Are My Options if I Need to Track Completion? If you need to track learner completion, that tends to narrow down your distribution options. You can keep things simple and host your microlearning messages in your Learning Management System (LMS). You’ll just need a way to keep learners in the loop when new drips are released—for instance, by automatically enrolling them in each microlearning, using LMS notifications about new content, or messaging learners direct links to new content. That said, xAPI may open your possibilities back up. This e-learning software specification sends, stores, and retrieves learner activity and performance data—even if the activity occurs outside an LMS. Pairing xAPI with a Learning Record Store (LRS) gives you a flexible way to track the completion of your microlearning messages. But if you’re not well-versed in xAPI, you’ll need to deepen your skills or enlist the help of an expert to make this distribution option work. Wrap-Up Drip campaigns are one of the many techniques learning and development teams can adopt and adapt from marketing. This approach blends short microlearning messages with a spaced approach to distribution, giving you a solution that fits into the schedules of even the busiest of learners. And because marketing teams have used this flexible format for years to shift behavior, your stakeholders can feel confident that this approach can lead to real results for learners and your organization. Want to do a deeper dive into how microlearning works before you assemble your campaign? Then check out the following articles: Getting Started With Microlearning—6 Common Questions Answered 3 Tips for Creating Effective Microlearning Courses 3 Things You’ll Love About the New Microlearning Feature in Rise 360 Want to discover more ways to borrow approaches from other fields and apply them to learning? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter. And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.
