Ways in which Higher Education Institutes Can Use Micro-learning

Students today are lot more occupied into multiple activities besides academics than they were a few years back.

Also, with time, students’ attention span is receding thereby making them distracted at small little things. In a nutshell, teachers are finding out ways to engage students in their learning process inside the classroom.

Today’s students learn quite differently than they did in the past. Due to the access to information and multiple learning platforms online which give a boost to the entire process. New age learning tools such as ‘Micro-learning’ is gaining a thrust in the present time. They turn out to be a one stop solution because, they help in creating sticky learning experiences and usher striking benefits such like-

1. Flexibility to access valuable content at any time of the day or wherever they feel comfortable, maybe at school, in transit, at home, etc.
2. Cost effective as they are more economical than other modes. Learners hardly need to bear huge cost of transportation and the service providers too, has to just bear negligible print and overhead costs as opposed to significant costs involved in traditional learning methods.
3. Supports retention as small nuggets of information are easier to remember and recall as and when needed. Microlearning are generally structured in a certain way that it exposes the learners to bite-sized lessons and are immediately followed by reinforcement.

With hard-hitting benefits at its disposal, Micro-learning is what the corporate world has adapted as a great employee on-boarding tool in corporate learning. They mainly use curated Micro-learning and this is why as per a column written by Sean Gallagher, even the higher education must adapt to such a process to make students compatible to the corporate learning culture.

In fact, due to a change in the education sector, we see higher education world is not solely depending on physical textbooks and hour long presentations. So with Microlearning facilities, universities and colleges can actually make learning 50% more efficient for the students at half the cost of what it costs in traditional learning environment. So, in order that institutions integrate micro-learning unit in the broader curriculum and syllabus, get started with the ways mentioned below to use micro-learning in the classroom.

1. Videos are a great way that you can start with as a method to implement Microlearning into your course. In a flipped learning classroom setup, information packed videos can turn out highly effective. Here students can first view the video, learn on the topic beforehand and then come ready in the classroom to reflect upon what they understand about the topic and their individual observations. They can also perform activities in line to what they have learned so that they can extend that learning.
2. The other step to make learning more engaging is to gamify it. Gaming elements are very refreshing to the brain and including them into learning can be really fruitful in making the process engaging and motivational. Education based gamification software can be used for this purpose. They have various options in them which help one to add interesting graphics, motivational rewards and striking sound effects.
3. Infographics are another form of learning tools. They add great ways to add visuals to the courses and make the process very engaging for different kinds of learners. They are a great way to condense a topic and add lunge chunk of information in an interactive format. Raw numbers and statistics can be used in presenting information on the topics. Thus, abstract information can be presented into a recognizable order and this is the main benefit of using infographics for the students.
4. The other way to implement Micro-learning in the classroom is to include quizzes. Yes, this not only makes the classroom discussion active but allows teachers to improve the retention and recalling power of the students. Teachers can use this method to actually check if students remember it all, what they have learned so far in the previous classes and may be also get a chance to clear doubts in case of any confusion related to the topic covered previously.

Are there any other interesting ways in which Micro-learning can be implemented in the classroom? Do let us know if you have been practicing any other successful ways of integrating Micro-learning in your course.