A Practical Guide to Using Microlearning to Create a Learning Campaign

About six months ago we ran a series of blog posts on Learning Campaigns (here, here here and here). The central idea is that for microlearning to be effective you need to combine the microlearning event with an opportunity for retrieval practice. And, depending on your learning goals, you might want to include a final …

Just Because It’s Short Doesn’t Mean You Will Remember It

Here at Intela, we are big fans of microlearning. There is a huge amount of research demonstrating that presenting small nuggets of information spaced over time improves learning retention. Much of this is due to limitations on our working memory: Working memory is short-term (no more than a few minutes) and limited – capable of …

Using Microlearning to Ensure Long Term Mastery

In our past two posts we examined strategies for using microlearning for (a) delivering new content and (b) creating a sustainment learning strategy. This week we will consider how to use microlearning in the case where there is a large learning event and the goal is to achieve and sustain mastery. Returning to the classic …

Microlearning: Short and Sweet

Are you interested in microlearning but need a guide to help you? If so, the ATD Press has published a new book written just for you: “Microlearning: Short and Sweet,” by Dr. Karl M. Kapp and Dr. Robyn A. Defelice. Want to order the book? Click here: Recently Dr. Steven Just, the CLO of Intela, …

Sustaining Learning with Microlearning

Slight change of plan. This week we will discuss using microlearning for sustained learning; next week we’ll look at the mastery strategy. Last week we discussed a microlearning strategy that can be deployed when the microlearning is the learning (there is no large-scale learning event). This week we will consider how to use microlearning in …

When the Microlearning is the Learning

In our last blog post we described three Learning Campaigns, representing three different microlearning strategies: Learn – when microlearning is the learning. There is no prior large-scale learning event. Master – using microlearning to ensure long term learning mastery after a traditional learning event. Sustain – using microlearning to sustain long term learning after a traditional learning event. This week we will look more …

Making Microlearning Effective Using Learning Campaigns

Today, no training strategy is complete without a microlearning strategy. But where do you begin? And once you begin, where do you go from there? Classic eLearning courses tend to be of a fixed nature. They usually look something like this: But microlearning is less structured. It's more agile. Activities and microlessons can be combined …

Why Are You Quizzing Me on What I Already Know?

Intela has a variety of evidence-based Microactivities that improve and sustain learning. One of the more popular activities is the Learning Sprint. A Learning Sprint is a flashcard-like exercise in which learners are required to answer questions from an item pool over a period of several days or weeks (exact scheduling can be set by …

We Have Two Kinds of Long Term Memory and Each Is Important for Learning and Performance

Last week we wrote about long term memory and memorization. Usually when people talk about long term memory they fail to distinguish that learners have two types: Explicit (or declarative) memory Implicit (or non-declarative) memory Explicit memory is things you know, that you can express in words. For example: Albany is the capital of New …

In Defense of Memorization

Way down at the bottom of Bloom’s Taxonomy is “knowledge” (Original Taxonomy) or “remembering” (Revised Taxonomy), otherwise pejoratively referred to as "memorization."                                      Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Any instructional designer worth his or her salt knows that we never …