6 Most Effective Microlearning Formats to Engage Corporate Learners

Once upon a time, two friends Arpit and Bhavya(names changed) had to appear for a job interview. They cleared the 1st phase and an interview was scheduled after 3 days. Arpit chose to refer to long-form content like textbooks and PowerPoint presentations which were never-ending while Bhavya went for a different and smarter approach where she only consumed small pieces of information in the form of videos, infographics, and podcasts. On the day of the interview, Arpit forgot most of the information he gained in these 3 days and messed up the interview. On the other hand, Bhavya retained most of the knowledge, excelled in the interview, and landed the job. Wondering how microlearning was the game-changer in this situation? Let’s find out.

Why Use Microlearning?

Microlearning can help you to learn relevant information in a limited time and the learners tend to retain most of the information they gained. Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve states that a learner tends to lose almost half of the gained information within a few days until you revise it again. Refresher courses can help the learners retain the forgotten information, but learners cannot attend regular classroom sessions repeatedly, so microlearning would be an impactful solution here.

Microlearning this forgetting curve by providing just-in-time learning that is spaced efficiently which would help the learners to gain the relevant information required for the moment. Microlearning can have various distinct use cases, and thus, it’s not limited to one or two formats. This blog throws light upon the 6 most preferred microlearning formats across these multiple use cases.

Learn how microlearning can help you enhance an employee’s performance. 

6 Most Effective Microlearning Formats to Engage Learners

1. Carousels or Content Slides

Modern generation prefers to consume short content instead of long paragraphs, so when a learner looks at long threads of texts, they lose most of their interest. Carousels or content slides are efficiently packed pieces of illustrations or data that a learner can go through in less than 2 minutes, and gain most of the knowledge about a certain topic without getting overwhelmed with excessive non-digestible information.

2. Infographics

As the name suggests, it is a combination of information and graphics which is best used to deliver relevant information quickly that is represented in a graphical form. The human eye is often attracted to quirky visual designs and infographics use this phenomenon to provide useful information about a specific topic and engage learners. Infographics prefer the information to be delivered in a step-wise manner instead of presenting it all directly. Due to their versatile nature, L&D managers prefer infographics over simplistic text-based content.

3. Mobile Apps

Smartphone apps are one of the most preferred formats in recent times after the powerful duo of mobile learning and microlearning   as immensely impactful. The modern workforce uses mobiles more than any other device and thus, it’s best to have their learning resources accessible on those mobile devices. These apps can even integrate other multimedia formats within the courses as per relevance and provide an overall engaging microlearning experience. Duolingo is one such mobile app that helps you learn multiple languages through a mobile app with the help of multiple short exercises and interactive activities followed by assessments.

4. Games

Who doesn’t like playing games once in a while, it’s even better if they get to learn something through these games. Well, game-based microlearning modules do help you learn a lot, in a way that’s more engaging than the others. Game-based eLearning   work best with quizzes and help learners to retain a lot of information they gained while completing that specific course. Games keep a user motivated and provides them a sense of achievement along with instant feedback for improvisations.

For example, games like Dr. Driving can help you learn the basics of driving a car in an immersive and more engaging way than a typical 30 min tutorial.

5. Audiobooks and Podcasts

Can you complete a 100-page book in 2 hours? Well, you can if you listen to the text instead of reading it. Audiobooks, as the name suggests, deliver the information written as a text into a speech that saves time for learners. Some learners retain more information that was shared with them in an audio format rather than a visual format. You can listen to audiobooks while performing other tasks simultaneously, like dusting your house or jogging.

A podcast   to as Personal On-Demand Broadcast and it is another audio format that can be useful for microlearning. Here, an individual or a group of individuals host these podcasts where they share their stories, interchange knowledge, or just carry forward a conversation on a certain topic. A separate recording is termed an episode and these episodes are downloadable on the internet or they can be attended live.

6. Videos

I saved the best for the last, and in my opinion, videos are probably the best format to deliver microlearning content. As a matter of fact, most social media platforms such as Instagram or Youtube have started preferring the short video format for their content. Instagram promotes “Reels” more than any other video format while YouTube also recently introduced “Shorts” to allow the content creators to be more precise and versatile with their content. In this modern world, where attention and engagement are more volatile than mercury, microlearning videos  passed their check with ease, as one of the most preferred microlearning formats.

To Wrap It All!

Now that I have discussed these popular formats to deliver engaging microlearning content for the modern workforce, microlearning still might have a lot of unexplored potential and due to this promising future, microlearning is here to stay for a long period. Apart from understanding what microlearning is, it’s always a good idea to understand its relevancy to your learning strategy. This free eBook can help you to figure out where can microlearning fit in your learning strategy to enhance the performance of your employees.