May 12, 2016. - Goldfish have better attention than people. It sounds far-fetched, but research supports this finding.  Goldfish have an attention of 9 seconds. Humans have an attention span of 8 seconds when smartphones are a factor, according to a study conducted by Microsoft that surveyed 2,000 Canadians and analyzed the brain activity of 112 participants using electroencephalograms. 

When text messages, news alerts, and email notifications ping at you all day, it can be hard to stay focused. So how can you keep your learners engaged in training, and not distracted by their cellphones?

Cut it down into bite-sized pieces. Instead of garnishing your training with extraneous information, improve the learning experience by showcasing key topics. The art of honing in on important information is called microlearning.

Brian Bishop, virtualwirks’ Practice Leader for Workforce Performance, compares microlearning as the CliffsNotes for training. This is a clever and accurate analogy. Microlearning makes training easy and approachable. This highlighter approach is highly effective in signaling to employees what information is essential to notice and to memorize.

Ways you can Train Smarter, Not Harder:
• Create Role-based Assignments. – Deliver your learning in focused, role-based assignments.
• Keep Content Short and Snappy. – Get to the point fast, but keep it interesting.
• Focus on One Topic. – Center on one topic, idea, or concept at a time.
• Spice it Up.  – Diversity the delivery of the training. Use videos, games, quizzes, activities etc. The variety helps keep engagement up.
• Make it Mobile.  – Make sure your training is cellphone compatible. This way, employees can take training anywhere, anytime.
• Empower Employees. – Flip the traditional training model, by letting employees reach out for training at their own pace, when they are ready to learn.

There are a lot of advantages using a microlearning approach in your training. The concise nature gives you freedom to train students on a wider variety of material and to keep them informed of hot industry trends. Employees feel like their time is valued when they are not bogged down with concepts that are non-essential to their role. It re-imagines training from a task to dread, to an activity worth anticipating with excitement!

At Edcomm Banker’s Academy we are passionate about designing training to make it more appetizing to employees through microlearning strategies. Everything—from our standard, freshly vetted topics, to our diverse quiz formats, to our rich video assets is concise and engaging. Please reach out to us directly to learn about how we can help you incorporate microlearning objects into your training!

by Madelyn Fagan

Sources
Bishop, Brian. “4 steps to microlearning mastery.” eLearning Industry. 14 May 2013. Web. 2 May 2016.
Makhlouf, Jack. “Microlearning : Strategy, Examples, Applications, & More. ELearning solutions. Elearningmind. 15 April 2015. Web. 2 May 2016.
Malamed, Connie. “ Is microlearning the solution you need? A closer look at bite-sized learning.” The eLearning coach. For desiging smarter learning experiences. 2015. Web. 2 May 2016.
Watson, Leon. “Humans have shorter attention span than goldfish, thanks to smartphones.” The Telegraph. 15 May 2015.Web. 2 May 2016.