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Designing Microlearning

10 May 2017 by Clark 6 Comments

Yesterday, I clarified what I meant about microlearning. Earlier, I wrote about designing microlearning, but what I was really talking about was the design of spaced learning. So how should you design the type of microlearning I really feel is valuable?

To set the stage, here’re we’re talking about layering learning on performance in a context. However, it’s more than just performance support. Performance support would be providing a set of steps (in whatever ways: series of static photos, video, etc) or supporting those steps (checklist, lookup table, etc).  And again, this is a good thing, but microlearning, I contend, is more.

To make it learning, what you really need is to support developing an ability to understand the rationale behind the steps, to support adapting the steps in different situations. Yes, you can do this in performance support as well, but here we’re talking about  models.  

What (causal) models give us is a way to explain what has happened, and predict what will happen.  When we make these available around performing a task, we unpack the rationale. We want to provide an understanding behind the rote steps, to support adaptation of the process in difference situations. We also provide a basis for regenerating missing steps.

Now, we can also be providing examples, e.g. how the model plays out in different contexts. If what the learner is doing now can change under certain circumstances, elaborating how the model guides  performing differently in different context provides the ability to transfer that understanding.

The design process, then, would be to identify the model guiding the performance (e..g.  why  we do things in this order, and it might be an interplay between structural constraints (we have to remove this screw first because…) and causal ones (this is the chemical that catalyzes the process).  We need to identify and determine how to represent.

Once we’ve identified the task, and the associated models, we  then need to make these available through the context. And here’s why I’m excited about augmented reality, it’s an obvious way to make the model visible. Quite simply, it can be layered  on top of the task itself!   Imagine that the workings behind what you’re doing are available if you want. That you can explore more as you wish, or not, and simply accept the magic ;).

The actual task  is the practice, but I’m suggesting providing a model explaining  why it’s done this way is the minimum, and providing examples for a representative sample of other appropriate contexts provides support when it’s a richer performance.  Delivered, to be clear, in the context itself. Still, this is what I think  really constitutes microlearning.  So what say you?

Comments

  1. Juan Domingo Farnos Miro says

    10 May 2017 at 9:32 AM

    Me ha gustad oque recojas los aspectos contextuales y diferenciadores ya que los veo básicos para la confección de cualquier proceso de aprendizaje y si son microaprendizajes, aún más, es más, sin esa personalización de los mismos apoyados por las TIC, intenet, AI etc, creo que sería imposible llegar a ellos.
    La realidad aumentada, virtual, simulaciones diferentes, si, son una manera en que podemos establecer procesos educativos como potentes herramientas pedagógicas en eLearning y en el mismo nivel podemos situar la creación de Escenarios de aprendizaje diferenciados.

    ¿Cuáles son sus características principales y dónde está su verdadero valor?

    La técnica es similar a la del simulador de un avión pero con conceptos formativos, es decir, adaptamos simulación y/o creación de escenarios de aprendizaje y los adaptamos a lo que haría cualquier piloto, el cual refrenda que aprende muchísimo más practicando en un simulador aéreo (prueba, error, corrección y nueva prueba) que oyendo clases teóricas o estudiando manuales de vuelo. De hecho, se trata de una especie de método del caso online.

    En los simuladores educativos se pone al alumno en la necesidad de opinar, de implicarse, de incorporar un rol en una situación verídica (o muy similar a la realidad-el Escenario de aprendizaje inclusivo, personalizado e inclusivo)), de escoger sus propias opciones. Se le dan detalles y se le proponen alternativas de actuación.

    Luego, se le va situando en el escenario que él mismo elige y se le explican los resultados de sus acciones. Hay muchos finales posibles y el alumno obtiene feed-back del propio programa y del profesor. También puede compartir sus reflexiones, análisis, errores y aciertos con sus compañeros de curso (antes, durante y después de los ejercicios, y todo ello de forma virtual). Incluso, si lo desea, puede comparar sus calificaciones con la media de la clase, con las puntuaciones de todos y cada uno los participantes, aun sin ver sus nombres (pueden ser miles de classmates, de diferentes empresas y países). Lo cierto es que resulta francamente interesante, divertido… y se aprende de verdad: learn by doing en estado puro.

    Estas simulaciones y/o Escenarios de aprendizaje siempre serán buenos si se adecuan a cada individuo y con herramientas, metodologías…diversas pero personalizadas y con un denominador común, buscar LA EXCELENCIA DE LOS USUARIOS-ALUMNOS.

    Por tanto podemos afirmar que el desarrollo de E-learning implicará un avance en la educación y al revés, o sea, una buena educación permitirá mejorar E-learning.

    @juandoming

  2. Clark says

    10 May 2017 at 6:07 PM

    Juan, apologize that I can’t reply in Spanish, but thanks to Google Translate I can understand: simulators mimic real workplace, and provide a basis to minimize the amount of ‘content’ required to support learning in the environment. That’s similar to what I’m saying here, except that we don’t have to design the simulation, we instead need to instrument the context so we know what’s occurring when so we can trigger appropriate contextual feedback. Overall, this is more like implementing coaching, I guess, but with specific support for understanding the why and how, not just the what. Thanks for engaging!

  3. Juan Domingo Farnos says

    11 May 2017 at 1:28 AM

    La idea es adaptarnos al contexto, por una parte,
    instrumentalizarlo si es necesario pero hacerlo de manera personalizada en lo referido a los aprendizajes
    representándolo por simulaciones, obviamente con el “que” también, obviamente, de esa forma la relación formación y trabajo se entienden mejor en cualquier organización, sea empresa, sea universidad etc

    Por eso será tan importante la redarquia, transparencia y confiabilidad, en tododos los sujetos que intervienen en todos los procesos

    @juandoming

    Gracias Clark

  4. Curtis says

    17 May 2017 at 10:42 PM

    This sounds plausible as long as the designer is as systematic as you describe in terms of the task(s) and chunks the model into a manageable unit (micro). Feedback, in this case, is highly intrinsic since it’s embedded in the practice/context. Still hard to see how microlearning can be appropriate for anything other than conceptual and procedural learning, but I may be a little myopic.

  5. Clark says

    21 May 2017 at 12:56 PM

    Actually, I agree that it isn’t a necessity. However, I do believe it increases the probability of a valuable learning outcome.

Trackbacks

  1. Designing Microlearning | EDUMIO.com says:
    21 May 2017 at 11:32 AM

    […] I don’t agree that a learner  requires an explicit semantic representation in order to have learned. [Link] […]

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