Micro-learning

I’ve been exploring this notion of 360 degree learning – seeing the opportunities to learn from sources all around you. This dislodges learning from being classroom-centred to fitting more directly into your everday life. But as an extension of that, I’ve been thinking about “time.”

People find it difficult to devote large blocks of time to study. Our traditional models of education have learners in classrooms for 90 minutes…3 hours…all day. I’m not sure if this even makes sense pedagogically. Can we really absorb that much information in a such a concentrated timeframe? We don’t eat like that. Actually, they say that it’s better to eat smaller amounts but more frequently. Our bodies can absorb the nutrients much better that way…more efficient. My hunch is that learning is similar.

Think of all those down times in our day…those moments like sitting in a waiting room, riding the bus, standing in line…all those moments that we try to fill with crossword or siduku puzzles. With today’s mobile technology, we can now use those moments for learning. Down-time learning. Learning between events. Learning on the go. Living and learning. This means that content needs to be broken down into little chunks.

I’ve been playing around with the term “micro-learning.” This would be learning relatively small units of information or doing short-term learning activities that would take anywhere from 2 to 15 mintues to complete.

I read some interesting stats:
- The average adult attention span is 6 to 8 minutes.
- Adults can retain information for about 20 minutes before memory decay begins.

So there may be something to this “micro-learning” idea.

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