Learning Nuggets
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Micro-Learning
What do many people think of when they learn a subject? Of the long past school and study time? About boring certificate courses that have to be completed in order to take the next career step? In classroom training courses that last several days and for which you don't really have time?
Unfortunately, training courses regularly miss the target group or at least their expectations and are often associated with a high expenditure of time and travel. Even if they are well designed and carried out, they often do not achieve their goal because there is no transfer. In recent years I have had very good experiences with informal and micro-learning, both personally and in the training context. Here, the effort is reduced and at the same time the transfer is significantly improved. In short learning units, knowledge suitable for everyday use is shared, which can be directly implemented. Much of it is so simple and intuitive that colleagues, friends and family also participate.
Every week I will post learning nuggets that have helped me and may help you (life hacks , tool functions and recently also cyber security hacks). To make sure that the posts won't get lost in the the internet, I will summarize them in an article, which I'm constantly updating (GE and EN).
Tool-Hacks
Involve colleagues, customers and learners in your presentations
Cyber-Security-Hacks
A few suggestions for you in a short presentation (20 slides of 20 seconds)
Life-Hacks
Does your training content not Stick? Try Micro-Learning
During the 14th HR Minds L&D Forum in Budapest, my presentation dealt with this question above. As is often the case, it is not easy as a conference participant to know in advance which topic is particularly relevant. Usually you only have a title and a short description. This creates a picture in your head that may or may not correspond to the actual presentation.
After my presentation I received a number of positive feedbacks. Among other things because I had not fulfilled expectations in a positive sense. But what expectations had I aroused with my title? Many assumed that I would only speak about short video learning units. And they were only partially right. My first step was to show why many of the classic training formats no longer work or have never worked properly. I didn't want to leave this statement in the room and backed it up with evidence and practical examples. At the beginning I asked the participants three questions:
Of those who took part in the live survey, 89% had attended a training course within the last year. However, more than a third of the participants estimate their learning transfer to be under 30% and another third estimate it to be around 50%. Slightly more than half had already had experience with micro-learning.
Nuremberg funnel and classical trainings
With the Nuremberg Funnel, large amounts of new knowledge can be learned very quickly. Who would not like that? A language, a tool or something else can be learned in a very short time. This device would sell like hot cakes - both for individuals and companies. Unfortunately this device does not exist. It was first mentioned almost 400 years ago by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer. Of course it was not meant seriously and takes the attempt to funnel a lot of knowledge in a very short time. It is something that was already controversially discussed several centuries ago.
Many classical trainings are structured like the Nuremberg funnel. Unfortunately, learning does not work that way. Everyone of us has had this experience at school and/or university. Nevertheless, there are still trainings that press as much input as possible in a very tight time frame (of course, it can also be due to the client). Trying to impart a lot of knowledge in a short time does not bring the desired success and can have negative effects. The learners switch off at some point and may be frustrated at the end of the training and doubt themselves. Instead of increasing the joy of learning through experiences of success, we achieve the opposite and strengthen negative beliefs:
There are also other disadvantages of classical trainings:
All this would still be fine, BUT unfortunately there is often little or no transfer of the learning content to daily work.
For this reason you should ask yourself: are the costs and benefits of my trainings in a good relation?
Requirements for learning
To create the conditions for learning, the learning content should be small, connected and meaningful.
Every point is important, yet "meaningful" is central. If the learners do not know why they are learning something and what the desirable outcome is, it becomes difficult. So, let us first clarify the WHY. And do it as concretely, visual, and with as much desirable as possible. This applies both to companies and to private individuals. Someone who wants to learn Spanish should define why he wants to learn this language before he starts learning it. Which of the following variants do you think has a higher chance of success?
Variant 1: I would like to learn Spanish in order to have another language in my portfolio.
Variant 2: It would be great if I could talk to my Spanish girlfriend in her mother tongue, order tapas in Spanish at the restaurant and do my sabbatical in South America.
After the why is clarified, small and coherent learning units should be developed and repeated until they stick. Why this is a promising approach was proven 135 years ago by the German Hermann Ebbinghaus with an experiment: the forgetting curve. He learned thousands of words and noted how many of them stuck in his memory. The result was devastating. He forgot most of them again within 24 hours (about 70%).
Fortunately, he found out how we manage to make what we have learned stick. The secret is REPETITION. Every time we go back to a learning unit, the forgetting curve flattens further. Until at some point we retain the largest part. Luckily, repetition does not have to take place every day and the distances between them can grow.
This way we can learn almost everything - of course it helps if it is important to us. Whoever takes this information into account has the foundation to build good micro-learnings.
Examples for Micro-Learnings
Micro-learnings can be put into practice in various ways. I will briefly discuss four of them:
Gamification
As part of an international project group, we used reverse mentoring cards to convey content in a playful way. Each card shows a challenge that many employees are facing or could face: The focus is on cooperation. This is not about right or wrong. Everyone should independently think about possible solutions and present their ideas and approaches to their colleagues and discuss them. Although there are predefined answers for each question, they are only presented if they have not already been addressed. This procedure has several advantages:
The cards can be flexibly integrated into existing trainings. You can start each meeting with a 5-minute learning unit. In everyday work life many people find it difficult to integrate learning. There are more than enough meetings and with only a few minutes per meeting a lot of learning time is accumulated.
Nuremberg funnel (Origin Wikipedie was edited)
Nuremberg funnel (Origin Wikipedie was edited)
Video Learning
Almost nobody from Generation Y or younger reads instruction manuals. Instead, they watch short videos on YouTube. In the meantime, there are many eLearning providers who also rely on short videos (LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udemy, Udacity, ...). Many offers are free or cheap. Today the challenge is no longer to find something, but to choose the right one from the many offers. Those responsible for learning in companies do not have to reinvent the wheel but can concentrate on finding relevant and good content for their colleagues and recommending it to others.
In case contents are company-specific or new, additional videos can be produced with manageable effort. 2-3-minute learning videos have the advantage that nobody must be afraid to ask. They can watch the videos again and again, wherever they want.
Internal Social Media Approach
Who knows best what is needed to work better, and who can best help? Very often you find solutions in your own company. Other employees are struggling with the same challenges and may have suitable solutions at hand that can be directly adopted. Expensive expertise that is already available in the own company is regularly purchased. You just have to know where to find it. Especially in smaller companies many things can be done on call. With increasing company size this works less often. This is where Enterprise Social Networks (ESN) like Yammer, for example, unfold their power. If you post a question in your ESN, you naturally have no certainty whether someone will answer or whether the question will be answered correctly. It's worth a try and I am regularly positively surprised when I find a suitable solution or the right expert within minutes. I have written about a practical example here:
A positive side effect is that this approach increases the problem-solving competence of employees - they learn to help themselves and understand and appreciate the value of their network.
External Social Media Approach
If there is no ESN in your own company or the search was unsuccessful, external networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn can help. While hundreds or thousands of colleagues have access to the ESN, the external networks are in the millions. In addition, your questions and information can reach colleagues who do not use the ESN. The prerequisite for success is a well-maintained profile that invites interaction. The focus should not be on taking, but on giving. Those who regularly proactively share valuable information and help others will also be helped.
In addition, a positive side effect can occur: Brand awareness is increased, and the image of a good employer brand is promoted. Who would not want to work in a company that shares information and lifelong learning is actively lived by its employees?
Micro-Learnings vs. Classical Trainings
There are topics that can be completely covered by micro-learnings. This does not mean that they are the solution for every learning challenge. Nevertheless, they can be an excellent addition to any classical training (before, during, after) or be integrated into everyday work situations (meetings, events, assemblies, etc.).
The bottom line for me is that through micro-learnings many costs can be reduced or avoided and the learning transfer is increased.
I would be pleased if you now try to integrate micro-learnings into your everyday life.
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Thank you for reading my article. Here at LinkedIn I write about digital transformation, New Work and further personnel related topics that can drive long term business performance. My articles published in professional journals can be found at Researchgate.
To read my future articles simply click "follow". Also feel free to follow me on my micro blog on Twitter.
About Moritz Meißner
Moritz Meißner is a former army officer, business administration graduate and M.A. in business psychology. Thanks to his experience as a lecturer, as consultant to companies of various sizes, as part of a start-up team and his work as a department head in a large corporation, he can assess challenges from a wide variety of perspectives. His main focus here is on preparing employees for tomorrow's challenges in the best possible way. A central component for this lies in the teaching of new ways of cooperation.
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