What Is a Microlesson?

There’s no formal guideline for the length of a“microlesson”—they can range from one to 15 minutes, with eight minutes acommon target or maximum. Even so, Diane Elkins and Tanya Seidel, of Artisan eLearning, agree thatmicrolessons have several defining characteristics:

• Brevity is key. “‘Short’ has a wide variety ofdefinitions; and obviously the content is going to play a role in how short somethingcan be,” Seidel said.
• “It’s not as much about length as it is singlepurpose,” Elkins said. “Short and to the point, and targeted.”
• A primary goal of microlessons is reducinginformation overload, “getting to the point really fast,” Seidel said. “It’smore ‘need to know’ information versus ‘want to know.’”

In addition to being short, microlessons are “easilyrepeatable,” Seidel said. Comparing a microlearning module with moretraditional eLearning, she observed, “If you’re doing something on a complextask that takes an hour and a half to get through, well, you’re not going tosit through an hour-and-a-half course right before you go into a sales meeting.But if you have short topics in a microlearning format that is easilyrepeatable, you might take a quick little three-minute course on how tonegotiate pricing right before you go into a sales meeting, if you’re feeling alittle bit uneasy about that part.”

Elkins continues the thread: “It can also be refresher. Youmaybe went through an instructor-led training program on your sales techniques.You need some time to process all of that; you’re going to forget some of it;some of it you’re going to try and realize you don’t really have the nuance youneed. So you want to go back and get some refresher training that will restatewhat you’ve already learned or maybe go a little bit deeper.”

Chunked eLearning is not microlearning

Along with describing what makes up a microlesson, Elkinsand Seidel are clear about what a microlesson is not. For openers,taking a three-hour course and chopping it into three- or five-minute chunksdoes not turn it into a series of microlessons. And microlearning is “notdesigned for, in my opinion, foundational knowledge,” Elkins said. “If I amlearning to be a project manager, there is so much I have to know that I’d haveto take 104 microlessons to get what I need, and that would be maddening.”

A common misperception, Elkins said, is that the driver ofshorter eLearning—microlessons in particular—is the notion that people haveshorter attention spans. Though this has been thoroughly debunked, the mythpersists.

“We don’t make our staff meetings six minutes long; we don’tmake blockbuster movies six minutes long,” Elkins said. “If it’s meeting a needand relevant and engaging, people will pay attention. Yes, we do have to careabout people’s attention, but we need to care more about their time. It’s notthat I can’t pay attention—it’s that I have things to do.”

The training format and length has to match the trainingneed, Elkins said. “I don’t care what your attention span is; I cannot teachyou lab safety for a biochemical engineer in five minutes,” she said. “Can Imake it in small portions? Yes. But some would argue that that’s not microlearning.Just taking something big and putting it in small pieces isn’t a bad strategy,but it isn’t typically microlearning,” she said. “But if it’s, ‘We had a safetyincident in the lab, and it’s because people aren’t really clear on thelabeling of biohazardous waste,’ can I push out a five-minute refresher on thatfor everybody? You bet. Or maybe it’s an upgrade,” such as teaching learnerswho have completed their training about a new or updated tool or product.

Microlessons create learning opportunities

Their brevity makes microlessons mobile-friendly, which,Seidel said, creates new opportunities for learning. “Microlearning is perfectfor mobile devices,” Seidel said. “I’m not going to watch a one-hour video onmy phone unless it’s the only thing I have when I’m stuck on a plane.” Butshorter content is a different story, and presenting information in that wayallows learners to learn more efficiently.

“You’re in your car, you’re on a train, you’re on a plane,you’re waiting at the bus stop—whatever it might be, you know you have a pieceof microlearning that’s only a few minutes long—you can engage in it, and youcan engage in it fully, in that short amount of time that you are waiting orsitting or flying or doing whatever it is that you’re doing. Whereas if thatwere an hour-and-a-half-long course, I know, at least from my perspective, Iwouldn’t even start it.” Seidel said. “I’m not going to start it, forget what Istarted, and go back to it another time. So I’m just not going to do it at all.Microlearning offers an opportunity to at least do something in that time thatyou may not use otherwise.”

Create a microlesson

Instructional designers, eLearning developers, and trainingmanagers who are convinced that microlessons can solve some of their trainingproblems are invited to roll up their sleeves and get creative. Join TheeLearning Guild for DevLearn 2017 Conference & Expo, October 25 – 27 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Seideland Elkins are presenting a pre-conference BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop®) workshop,“Make a Microlesson in a Day,” on October 24. Workshop participants will build amicrolesson, from concept to finished product, during the seminar. Registration is open now!