Bite-sized learning is taking L&D by storm and it’s not hard to see why. In the grips of traditional eLearning, learners have to endure between 30-60 minutes of training.
One. Entire. Hour. In that time, your hair grows 0.18796 mm, McDonald’s sells 916,500 hamburgers and distilleries make 17,465 bottles of whisky.
Ironically, by the end you’ll be pulling your hair out, comforting yourself with junk food and desperate for a drink!
Traditional eLearning is dead. It fails to meet the needs of a modern learner! If you’re going to assemble an army of learning superheroes then this can’t carry on! You need a bite-sized learning campaign!
The 5 Benefits of Bite-sized Learning
When 94% of Learning and Development professionals declare that bite-sized online learning modules are the preferred mode of content delivery, you need to take notice. Luckily for you, Growth Engineering is here to break down (see what we did there) the awesome benefits of bite-sized learning…
1. Improved Engagement
Let’s be real for a second, you deserve an award for making it this far. You’ve had to negotiate all manner of creatures vying for your attention.
Your LinkedIn connection has just posted something with a seductive clickbait title. A Facebook friend has just posted their photos from the “BEST HOLIDAY EVER”. And perhaps most fearsome of all, an incredibly polite waving bear almost caught the eye…
In this increasingly noisy world with everything screaming for our attention, training engagement strategies must adapt or face being lost forever!
Luckily for you, a 20-minute piece of microlearning (considered to be the most a human brain can handle before switching off) can compete with the distractions of the digital age, delivering 50% more engagement and 17% more efficiency!
2. Better for Mobile
Unless your learner is on course for a Candy Crush high score, there is no way their mobile is being subjected to the time required to complete a gargantuan slab of traditional eLearning. Mobile learning is crucial to your engagement strategy and this needs to be reflected in your content delivery.
Indeed, September 2016 saw mobile usage overtake desktop for the first time! Bite-sized learning offers you the chance to deliver short bursts of training content to the modern learner on the move. This style of content delivery is here to stay, with mobile learning having an increased appeal to a millennial learner by 71%!
3. Improved Retention
Have you ever tried putting a whole apple in your mouth? It’s an overwhelming prospect and should you succeed, would be near impossible to digest! The same applies to a large piece of training content. Breaking it down into manageable chunks, suits the way our brains process information.
The Forgetting Curve shows how information is lost over time when you don’t retain it, rendering your training programme redundant. Luckily, bite-sized learning combats knowledge loss perfectly with easily digested content such as video. Soon, your learner will retain anything you throw their way! How do you like them apples?
4. Offers Just-in-Time Support
When seeking answers to the great mysteries of life such as, “Why don’t dogs have belly buttons”, your learner is just a Google, Bing or a posh butler called Jeeves away from the answer. These are the expectations of the modern learner, so it’s essential your training programme meets these demands.
Traditional learning made learners wade through irrelevant material. By the time they found what they sought, the issue had passed. Bitesize learning gives your learner a burst of content relevant to their problem, that they can act on immediately.
5. Better Value For Money
A traditional piece of eLearning usually takes between 3 and 6 months to develop, a time-consuming and costly process! The beauty of bite-size learning is it’s QUICKER, EASIER and CHEAPER to make!
Bite-sized learning will also reduce the usual expenditures that come with replacing a member of staff. This process usually costs £30,000, with much of this figure resulting from the loss of productivity when bringing a new recruit up to speed.
Bite-sized learning can erase such enormous costs with training that allows your learner to go from zero to hero in a flash! We recommend you invest all this extra money in high-quality capes, for all those learning superheroes you’re about to have on your hands!
Bite-Sized Learning in Action
Now that you’ve assembled all the elements necessary to create an awesome piece of bite-sized learning content, let’s see what this would look like in action…
Ted Talks
TED is a global community on a mission to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. Harnessing the power of bite-sized learning with video under 20 minutes, TED Talks are a cultural phenomenon, having been viewed over a billion times! Bite-sized learning is changing the world!
Cheesecake Factory
The Cheesecake Factory utilises bite-sized learning to train their waiters, cooks and bar staff. With over 300 menu items at their restaurants, it’s essential the staff know what each dish looks likes and what it contains.
The answer came in the form of a bite-sized learning game. The iPad screen shows dishes and the waiter has to identify the correct one.
You’ve seen the potential that microlearning has to offer and how you can implement it. So, what are you waiting for? Take the next step and assemble an army of learning superheroes with our handy guide to behaviour change. Click here to download.
