How to Use Microlearning To Change Your Career
Jan 19, 2021
2020 changed the employment landscape causing over 67% of people to rethink their career path. Making a change, pivot, or shift in your career can be stressful, and for most people, their first thought is going back to school. Instead, you can consider a different option--microlearning.
Microlearning is a different approach to learning, allowing you to take in small chunks of specialized information in a focused short period of time. In fact, it's a training approach that is aligned with the way people are living and learning today.
You can engage in microlearning in various ways (videos, e-books, infographics, simulations, podcasts, TED talks, and podcasts) with varied results (certification or licensure). Still, it's primarily designed to reinforce or expand upon an existing knowledge base. For example, you can advance your current knowledge or skills in communication, leadership, sales, finance, IT, or health and fitness. While you can use microlearning to learn entirely new content, you'll need to spend a little more time with the content.
So what are the benefits for you and your career? Here you go:
1. Greater Retention
Learning content in small doses increases long-term retention by 20%. You're far more likely to absorb key points and retain the information when taking in small bits of content and then immediately applying that information. Too much information can overload and overwhelm the mind and memory banks.
2. Multiple Delivery Models
Educational institutions have adopted a similar learning approach by developing professional development courses and executive programs in business, leadership, and management. However, the best examples of micro-learning programs can be found with LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Google Grow, and Udemy, and through a variety of entrepreneurial webinars, challenges, boot camps, and other workshops and virtual training. Also, schools like Stanford develop FeedLearn as a microlearning approach to learning a foreign language.
3. Cost-effective
Instead of spending a lot of time and money heading back to college for another degree, microlearning can be made available at a wallet-friendly price. Microlearning courses can range anywhere from free to a few hundred dollars. On the other hand, you're looking at a $30,000-60,000 price tag for a traditional educational program and potentially joining the other Americans currently owing over $1.64 trillion in student loan debt. Student Loan Planner breaks down the average and other student loan debt statistics to help you understand the student debt landscape. Since cost and time are a priority for most working professionals, microlearning presents a great option for upskilling at an affordable price.
Since microlearning allows you to breathe new life, excitement, and interest in your job and career, if you're a self-motivated individual with a love of learning, this will definitely be your cup of tea because microlearning rewards proactive, independent learning. You can also go at your own pace. This learning method has an applied integrative approach that allows you to use what you've learned immediately. You're in the driver's seat of your education with the flexibility, autonomy, and means to design a curriculum that makes the best sense for you.
Interested in jumpstarting your career advancement or change plan? Take some time to browse the Coursera website, find a great podcast, download an app, enroll in a Udemy course, or take advantage of my Exclusive Resource Library. The choice is absolutely yours....and that's the point!
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