Gamified Microlearning For Interactive Training
Today, technology has drastically changed the way organizations train their employees. Gone are the days when organizations conducted endless, bland face-to-face training sessions with incomprehensible manuals. Traditional training methodologies like classroom-based learning have gradually given way to more modern learning strategies. Over the years, the eLearning market has experienced a technology change to improve learning. Today, all organizations deliver online training sessions because they are shorter, direct, and more impactful.
Today, Learning and Development professionals use gamification and microlearning combinations to boost learner engagement and learning retention. Most organizations use the combination of gamification and microlearning because it adds a bit of interaction and fun to your eLearning content thus, providing more rich and structured learning experiences to your learners. This learning experience motivates your employees to engage and participate more effectively. Let’s dig deeper to figure out how gamification and microlearning can improve your employees’ performance and progress.
Microlearning: A Powerful Learning Strategy
According to the journal of applied psychology, a bite-sized learning approach makes your learners learn effectively by 17%. Several research types explain that learners cannot commit to more than 24 minutes of learning per week. This is why microlearning has become so popular and essential in a short period.
Microlearning is an eLearning methodology that involves breaking down the training content into bite-sized chunks—short, frequent, and direct. A distinguishing feature of microlearning is that it enables learners to break down complex concepts into smaller understandable chunks. Each of these information chunks has a very relevant aim and precise learning outcomes. Microlearning, in contrast to traditional learning, offers more focused learning to meet specific learning objectives.
Let’s understand with an example. What do you do when you need to fix a broken gadget. We all google or youtube and search for a tutorial that answers our required question in 10 minutes. This is exactly what microlearning does in eLearning. It guides your learners by providing them with all the needed information quickly and easily.
Companies typically distribute the microlearning resources to make their employees learn independently whenever they need the right resources. This learning experience makes your employees more engaged in your training content. Microlearning assures that your training content aligns with your employees’ needs. Additionally, when combined with mobile learning, microlearning makes your training content even more efficient by delivering it through mobile devices like smartphones and tablets to provide access to your employees anytime and anywhere.
How Does A Microlearning Strategy Work?
The microlearning strategy works on the four following pillars:
- Mobile learning
An effective microlearning strategy is the one that allows your employees to take learning on the go. Your employees can learn from their mobile devices anytime and anywhere at their convenience. They need not wait for the scheduled training sessions. - Employee-centric
Microlearning follows an employee-centric approach by providing them opportunities for choosing the right and appropriate learning resources. Additionally, these learning resources have a high impact on capturing employee attention. Because the resources are short and manageable, they manage to capture your employee’s attention in a short period. - Diverse learning resources
Corporate microlearning utilizes numerous learning resources like videos, infographics, visuals, podcasts, simulations, assessments, and much more to engage your employees and motivate them to participate more in the learning process. - Significant and interactive learning
With microlearning, your training content turns out to be more interactive, engaging, and fun because it allows your employees to effectively teach themselves the new skills and information before they put it to work.
Gamification
Gamification refers to the use of game-based mechanics and aesthetics to promote learning, engagement, and problem-solving in your employees. Gamification in the context of eLearning applies the techniques of game design to encourage your employees’ motivation, commitment, fidelity, and participation. Its ability lies in the versatility applicable to the majority of your corporate training needs. Gamification in eLearning makes use of storytelling and narratives to establish a challenging learning journey. The employees completing this learning journey are rewarded with badges, certificates, points, and much more.
A few key critical elements of gamified training platforms include the following:
- Points
- Badges
- Certificates
- Instant and consistent feedback
- Leaderboards
Value Of Gamification-Based Training
In today’s fast-paced and competitive environment, you can quickly motivate your employees by giving them rewards and recognition. This is precisely what gamification does. It fits in your learning strategy to provide value to your employees and organization through:
- Higher engagement of your employees, leading to higher learning retention and productivity;
- A safe and healthy environment where your employees feel motivated to obtain the required skillset;
- Provides instant feedback to improve the performance of your employees; and,
- Favors and facilitates behavioral change through spaced repetition and retrieval.
Today, gamification has become an integral part of the learning strategies of corporate training. Gamification has successfully showcased its ability to influence employee behavior positively.
Gamification And Microlearning: Deliver Result-Oriented Training
Combining gamification with microlearning turns out to be a perfect combination for corporate training. Microlearning can be used for both formal and informal training to boost your employees’ performance. Gamification with microlearning enhances your training performance in four powerful ways:
- Increased engagement
Microlearning and gamification are among the most powerful digital learning strategies to boost your employee engagement on their own. Gamification sparks curiosity in your employees using game-based mechanics, while microlearning focuses on delivering short, bite-sized chunks of information to your employees to boost employee engagement and concentration. - Great learning retention
Gamified microlearning is goal-oriented, focusing on one learning objective at a time. This goal-oriented approach reinforces your employees’ learning retention and other capabilities. As the gamified microlearning modules are short, employees can quickly grasp the content and analyze themselves independently. It makes the learning process easy and time-saving thus, boosting the retention of learned skills and concepts. - Motivation through play
The learning is successful when your employees are motivated. The gamified microlearning fosters curiosity in your employees to help them achieve their learning goals. The gamified microlearning strategy encourages the desire of learning by making your employees competitive and productive. - Quick information processing
Gamified microlearning follows an employee-centric approach to adapt to the modern learner’s short attention span. This strategy provides your employees with engaging training content that can easily hold your employees’ attention for 5 minutes, sufficient for processing and retaining the required information.
Organizations need to develop result-oriented training strategies to keep their employees motivated and boost their performance. Gamified microlearning is an ideal combination to increase employee productivity and create a healthy and ideal learning environment.